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UNIVERSITY    OF   CALIFORNIA. 


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EOUC. 
PSYCH. 

LIBRARY 


RATIONAL    PSYCHOLOGY; 


THE  SUBJECTIVE  IDEA  AND  OBJECTIVE  LAW 
OF  ALL  INTELLIGENCE. 


L  A  U  K  E  N  S    P.    H I C  K  0  K ,    D .  D. , 


A  NEW  AND   REVISED   EDITION 


BOSTON: 
PUBLISHED  BY   GINN,   HEATH,   &  CO. 

1882. 


EDUC. 

PSYCH. 

LIBRARY 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1861,  by 

LAUPwENS     P.     HICKOK.    D.D.. 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  b'ates,  for  the 

Northern  District  of  New  York. 


PEEFAC  E 


"  It  is  neither  necessary  nor  possible  that  all  men  should 
be  PHILOSOPHERS."  A  spontaneous  intelligence  begins  in 
cliildhood,  and  is  altogether  absorbed  in  the  experience  of 
the  varied  phenomena  of  the  senses.  In  this  respect,  most 
men  perpetuate  their  childhood  through  life,  and  never  rise 
above  a  spontaneous  intelligence.  They  perceive  that  which 
appears  in  the  light  of  the  common  consciousness,  and  de- 
dace  more  or  less  practical  conclusions  from  experience ; 
but  a  few  minds  only  of  a  generation  turn  themselves  back 
upon  consciousness  itself,  and  reflect  upon  what  and  how 
experience  must  be,  and  make  the  conditioning  principles 
of  all  intelligence  the  subject  of  patient  and  profound  inves- 
tigation. The  capability  to  rise  into  the  higher  light  of  a 
purely  philosophical  consciousness,  and  become  familiar  with 
a  prion  principles  and  transcendental  demonstrations,  de- 
pends so  entirely  upon  the  free  energizing  of  the  spiritual 
and  the  self-controlling  of  the  rational  in  man,  that  it  be- 
comes a  vain  hope  to  find  but  few  in  an  age  to  whom  such 
a  position  is  attainable,  and  for  whom  such  exercises  hi  pure 
thought  possess  any  interest.  No  one,  Avho  would  explain 
the  ])rocess  or  present  the  results  of  his  investigation  in  this 
field,  should  expect  the  multitude  to  give  any  attention  to 
his  communication ;  yet  the  ready  sympathy  of  all  who  are 
engaged  in  these  common  studies,  and  the  reciprocations  of 
a  deep  and  serene  interest  in  every  kindred  sj^irit,  may  give 


IV  PREFACE. 

confidence  to  any  one  who  has  his  message  to  deliver,  that 
if  he  will  but  give  it  utterance  in  clear ^oice  he  shall  in  such 
"  fit  audience  find  though  few." 

A  perfect  philosophy  must  be  universally  comprehensive. 
False  principles  and  wrong  processes  necessitate  an  erro- 
neous ^\Ao'^o^\r^  \  while  partial  principi3S  and  processes  of 
demonstration,  though  not  false,  must  yet  give  a  defective 
philosophy.  If  we  use  no  element  other  than  truth,  and 
thus  avoid  a  false  system  ;  still,  until  we  have  comprehended 
all  its  truth,  we  have  not  attained  to  the  perfected  system 
of  science.  It  would,  doubtless,  be  an  arrogant  assumption 
for  any  one,  at  the  present  age,  to  affirm  that  from  his  stand- 
point all  truth  may  be  discovered  and  a  full  encyclopedia  of 
science  may  from  thence  be  ensphered.  Each  thinker  attains 
a  portion  only  of  all  truth,  and  as  it  is  viewed  from  his  posi- 
tion ;  and  it  can  only  be  from  the  collected  attainments  of 
many,  that  we  gradually  mount  to  higher  stations  and  reach 
to  more  comprehensive  conclusions.  Kot  the  man,  but 
thinking  humanity,  is  the  true  philosoj^her.  TJlie  tributary 
streams  of  ages  go  to  make  up  the  full  flow  of  philosophic 
thinking,  and  at  length  this  may  pour  itself  into  what  yet, 
to  finite  intelligence,  shall  ever  be  a  shoreless  ocean. 

The  preparation  and  publication  of  this  work  has  been 
under  the  full  influence  of  these  considerations.  It  is  not 
expected  that  it  will  be  of  any  interest  to  the  many ;  suffi- 
cient quite,  if  it  reach  and  occupy  the  minds  of  the  few,  and 
propagate  its  reciprocations  of  free  thought  through  the 
growing  number  of  such  as  can  and  do  familiarize  them- 
selves in  purely  rational  demonstrations.  Nor  has  it  been 
deemed  that  there  is  here  a  perfected  and  universally  com- 
prehensive philosophy ;  though  it  is  believed  that  the  true 
direction  is  here  taken,  and  it  is  also  hoped  that  some  pro- 
gress has  been  gained,  towards  the  ultimate  attainment  of 
that  position  from  which  the  complete  science  of  all  sciences, 
if  ever  to  be  consummated,  must  at  length  be  perfected.  It 
is  intended  only  as  a  contribution  to  the  common  current  of 


PREFACE.  V 

rational  philosophic  speculation,  and  is  silently  cast  into  the 
stream  of  tliought  to  flow  on  with  it  if  found  to  be  conge- 
nial, or  to  be  thrown  ashore  if  it  prove  only  as  a  foreign 
cumbering  drift  upon  its  surface. 

Thus  far  was  the  Preface  to  the  original  form  of  the 
I"iational  Psychology.  In  its  present  form  regard  has  been 
taken  to  the  growing  acquaintance  of  the  thinking  mind 
with  these  sj^eculations,  and  also  to  the  demand  that  more 
attention  be  given  to  their  study  in  the  higher  classes  of  our 
colleges.  Some  modifications  have  thus  been  made  of  par- 
ticular parts,  but  not  in  the  general  method.  This  had  been 
too  comprehensively  thought  out  to  admit  of  any  change, 
national  psychology  must  give  the  accordant  idea  and  law 
through  all  the  functions  of  intelligence  in  the  sense,  the 
understanding  and  the  reason.  But  in  the  determination  of 
such  necessity,  it  is  not  now  needed  that  there  be  a  formal 
laying  of  the  groundwork,  and  we  thus  dispense  Avith  what 
was  given  in  Book  First,  and  avoid  the  undesirable  division 
of  the  work  into  two  books.  The  acquired  fiimiliarity  with 
pure  cognitions  permits  also  the  passing  by  of  such  parts  as 
were  designed  merely  to  facilitate  the  ready  use  of  such  cog- 
nitions, specially  the  relations  of  space  and  time  to  phenom- 
ena and  of  each  to  the  other,  and  also  remarks  in  several 
places  designed  only  to  show  the  disliuction  of  view  in  this 
work  from  Aristotle,  Kant,  and  others. 

In  the  application  of  the  results  of  psychology  to  on- 
tology, appended  to  each  part,  there  has  been  a  more  spe- 
cific appropriation  of  the  proof  for  real  being  as  belonging 
respectively  to  the  sense  and  to  the  understanding.  For  the 
clearer  conceptions  of  physical  substance  and  cause,  and 
more  especially  of  the  origination  of  nature  from  the  Abso- 
lute Creator,  the  conception  of  force  as  the  basis  for  all 
philosophical  thought  in  the  understanding,  and  as  the 
essence  of  all  material  being,  has  also  been  more  carefully 
and  completely  presented.     Many  minor  modifications  have. 


VI  PREFACE. 

moreover,  frequently  been  made,  designed  to  improve  the 
work  in  clearness-  and  completeness. 

The  complaint  of  obscurity  from  peculiarity  of  style  and 
terms  arises  from  the  nature  of  the  speculation,  and  nothing 
but  more  familiarity  with  this  field  of  thinking  can  make  any 
presentation  by  language  to  be  perspicuous.  No  words  will 
put  the  thoughts  over  into  the  empty  and  j^assive  mind,  but 
the  mind  must  come  to  the  language  with  some  previous 
preparation  in  its  habits  of  thinking  to  enable  it  to  discern 
and  take  the  thought  there  contained.  To  the  familiar  mind 
the  work  is  not  open  to  the  criticism  of  obscurity,  either 
from  style  or  terminology.  The  vague  reproaches  in  the 
charges  of  transcendentalism  and  German  speculation  need 
no  other  reply  than  the  emphatic  affirmation  that  whatever 
danger  or  error  there  may  be  in  transcendentalism  or  Ger- 
manism, these  are  not  to  be  overcome  by  any  timid  ignoring 
or  any  valorous  denouncing  of  them.  They  are  to  be  put 
down  in  no  other  manner  than  by  fairly  meeting  and  fully 
refutino^  or  correctino*  them  in  their  own  methods. 

The  work  has  done  more  than  was  anticipated  for  it  in 
aw^aking  and  directing  thought,  and  it  is  given  in  this  re- 
vised form  from  the  conviction  that  its  use  is  still  needed  to 
the  same  ends,  and  especially  as  a  text  or  reference  book  in 
the  higher  philosophical  instruction  of  our  colleges. 

Union  College,  1861. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Introduction 13 

1.  What  Rational  Psychology  is 14 

2.  The  Ends  to  which  the  Conclusions  of  Rational  Psychology 

may  be  subservient , 26 


KATIONAL    PSYCHOLOGY. 

General  Method 1i 

PAKT     I. 

THE     se:n"SE. 
Definitions  and  Specific  Method *l*l 

CHAPTER    I. 

THE     SENSE     IN     ITS     SUBJECTIVE     IDEA. 
FIRST    DIYISION. 

THE     IDEA     IN     THE     PURE     INTUITION. 

§  I.— The  Attainment  of  an  a  priori  Position 81 

1.  The  Primitive  Intuition  for  all  Phenomena  of  an  External 

Sense 84 

2.  The  Primitive   Intuition   for  all  Phenomena  of  an  Internal 


§  II. — The  Process  op  an  a  priori  construction  of  Real  Form 

in  Pure  Space  and  Time 91 

1.  The  Construction  of  Real  Form  in  Pure  Space. 93 

2.  The  Construction  of  Real  Form  in  Pure  Time 95 

§  III. — The  Primitive  Elements  of  all  possible  Forms  in  Pure 

Space  and  Time 98 

1.  Unity 99 

2.  Plurality 101 

3.  Totality 102 


Vm  CONTENTS. 

'  ~  PAGE 

§  lY. — The  UmTY  op  Self-Consciousness 105 

1.  More  than  Simple  Act 1 06 

2.  More  tlian  Unity  of  Conjoining  Agency 106 

3.  More  than  Unity  of  Agency  and  Unity  of  Consciousness 110 

SECOJ^D    DIVISION. 

THEIDEA     IN     THE     EMPIRICAL     INTUITION. 

§  I, — The  Attainment  of  an  a  priori  Position  through  a  Pro- 

LEPSIS 117 

§  II.^-The  Primitive   Elements  of  all  Possible  Anticipation 

OF  Appearance  in  the  Sense 120 

1.  Reality 122 

2.  Particularity 123 

3.  Peculiarity 124 

§  III. — The  a  PRIORI  Determination  of  what  Diversity  there 

MUST   BE   IN   all  QUALITY 121 

1.  Intensive 129 

2.  Extensive .' 130 

3.  Protensive. 131 

§  IV. — ^The  Construction  of  the  Homogeneous  Diversity  of  all 

POSSIBLE  Quality  into  Form. 132 

1.  Diversity  as  Intensive 1 35 

2.  Diversity  as  Extensive 136 

3.  Diversity  as  Protensive 133 

§  V. — The  Conclusive  Determination  of  the  Sense  in  its  Sub- 
jective Idea 143 

Other  representations  of  the  Sense 145 

CHAPTER    II. 

THE     SENSE     IN     ITS      OBJECTIVE     LAW. 

§  I. — Transcendental   Science  is  conditioned  upon  a  Law  in 

THE  Facts  conformed  to  an  a  priori  Idea 154 

§  II. — ^The  Colligation  op  Facts 159 

1.  Facts  connected  with  Obscure  Perception 161 

2.  The  Relative  Capabilities  of  the  different  Organs  of  Sense 166 

'3.  Deceptive  Appearance 177 


CONTENTS.  JX 

PAGE 

§  IIT. — The  Consilience  of  Facts 184 

Drawing  and  Painting 186 

Spy-Glass  and  Engraved  Figures 191 

Perspective  and  Dioramic  Eepresentations 192 

APPENDIX    TO    THE    SEXSE. 

'An  Ontological  Demonstration  of  the  Valid  Being  of  the  Phe- 
nomenal    197 

1.  Of  the  Inner  Plienomena 198 

2.  Of  the  Outer  Phenomena 200 


P  A  R  T     I  I . 

THE      TJN"I>ER,ST^^lSJ"r>i:N-G}-. 

I.  The  Necessity  for  a  Higher  Intellectual  Agency  than  ant 

IN  the  Sense. 203 

IL  The  Exposition  of  this  Higher  Agency  as  Understanding.  .  207 

CHAPTER    I. 

THE     UNDERSTANDING     IN     ITS     SUBJECTIVE     IDEA. 

§  I. — The  Understanding  necessarily  Discursive 213 

§  II. — Space  and  Time  the  necessary  Media  for  Determining 

Connection  through  a  Discursus 221 

§  III. — Space  and  Time  exclude  all  Determined  Experience 

except  through  the  connections  of  the  Notional 227 

1.  Tlie  Plienomena  only  may  be  given,  and  we  may  attempt  to 

Construct  tlieir  Places  and  Periods  by  tbem 228 

2.  The  one  Whole  of  Space  and  of  Time  may  be  assumed,  and 

the  Attempt  made  to  Determine  Phenomenal  Places  and 
Periods  by  them 230 

3.  The  Supposition  that  perhaps  a  Notional  Connective  for  the 

Phenomena  may  determine  these  Phenomena  in  their 
Places  and  Periods  in  the  whole  of  Space  and  of  Time, 
and  so  may  give  both  the  Phenomena  and  their  Space  and 
Time  in  an  Objective  Experience 237 


X  CONTENTS. 

PAQB 

g  lY. — The  Primitive  Elements  of  the  Operation  or  Connec- 
tion, GIVING  A  Possible  Experience  Determined  in  Space 
AND  Time 238 

1.  In  Space :  Substance  and  Accidence 239 

2.  In  Time :  as  having  Three  Modes : — 243 

Perpetual  Time :  Source  and  Event 246 

Successive  Time:   Cause  and  Effect 249 

Simultaneous  Time :  Action  and  Reaction 252 

§  Y. — Some  of  the  a  priori  Principles  in  a  Nature  of  Things.  256 

1.  Substance:  giving  Permanence,  Impenetrability,  Inertia,  etc.  258 

2.  Cause:  giving  a  Change  in  Things,  a  Train  of  Events,  etc 267 

3.  Action  and  Reaction:  giving  Co-existence,  Concomitance,  etc.  278 

§  "VI. — False   Systems    of  a  Universal  Nature  Exposed  in 

their  Delusive  a  priori  Conditions 282 

1.  When  the  Phenomenal  is  Elevated  to  a  Notional  in  the  Un- 

derstanding    286 

2.  "When  the  Notional  i.?  Degraded  to  a  Yague  Phenomenal,  or 

entirely  Excluded 310 

CHAPTER   II. 

THE     UNDERSTANDING     IN     ITS     OBJECTIVE     LAW. 

§  I. — Space  and  Time  each  as  a  whole 330 

§  II. — The    Determination  of  Experience  in  one  whole  of 

Space  and  of  Time 332 

1.  Experience  in  Universal  Space 333 

2.  Experience  in  Universal  Time 340 

§  III. — The  Determination  of  an  Experience  in  its  Particular 

Places  and  Periods 346 

1.  Particular  Determination  of  Places  in  Space 347 

2.  Particular  Determination  of  Periods  in  Time 352 

APPENDIX  TO  THE  UNDERSTANDING. 

An  Ontological  Demonstration  of  the  Yalid  Being  of  the 

Notional 370 

1.  Idealism  against  Materialism 374 

2.  Materialism  against  Idealism 376 

3.  Accordance  of  Consciousness  and  Reason  against  Pyrrhonism.   880 


CONTENTS. 

PART     III. 

PA6» 

Tes  Functioi^  and  Province  of  the  Reason » » . . ,  381 

CHAPTER    I. 

THE      REASON      IN      ITS      SUBJECTIVE      IDEA. 

§  I. — The  Attainment  of  the  Absolute,  as  an  a  priori  Posi- 
tion FOR  THE  Reason 397 

§  IL — The  Determination  of  Personalify  to  the  Absolute 411 

Primitive  Elements  of  Comprehension  : — 

1.  Pure  Spontaneity 415 

2.  Pure  Autonomy 420 

3.  Pure  Liberty 438 

§  III. — The  a  priori  Comprehension  op  Nature   in  the  Pure 

Personality  of  the  Absolute 446 

CHAPTER    II. 

the     reason     in     its     objective     law. 
Finite  and  Absolute  Personality 461 

§  I, — The    Pacts  of  a  Comprehending    Reason  which    come 

within  the  Compass  of  a  Finite  Personality 468 

1.  Esthetic  Facts 472 

2.  Mathematical  Facts 476 

3.  Philosophical  Facts 480 

4.  Psycholo2:ical  Facts 483 

5.  Ethical  Facts 484 

§  II. — The  Facts  of  a  Comprehending    Reason  which  come 

within  the  Compass  of  an  Absolute  Personality 507 

1.  Facts  Evincive  of  a  Universal  Recognition  of  an  Absolute  Per- 

sonality   510 

2.  The  Fact  of  a  Comprehendino:  Operation  for  Universal  Xature 

is  only  by  the  Compass  of  this  Absolute  Personality 529 


Xn  CONTENTS. 

APPEXDIX  TO  THE  REASON. 

PAGE 

An  OjrroLOGiCAL  Demonstratiox  op  the  Valid  Being  of  the 

Supernatural 54.0 

1.  The  Valid  Bein^  of  the  Soul 540 

2.  The  Valid  Existence  of  God 542 

3.  The  Validity  of  the  Soul's  Immortality 542 


INTRODUCTION 


Psychology  is  the  Science  of  J^find.  Em2nrical  I'sy- 
chology  attains  the  flicts  of  mind  and  arranges  them  in  a 
system.  The  elements  are  solely  the  facts  given  in  experi- 
ence, and  the  criterion  of  their  reality  is  the  clear  testimony 
of  consciousness.  When,  between  any  number  of  minds 
there  is  an  alleged  contradiction  of  consciousness,  the 
umpire  is  found  in  the  general  consciousness  of  mankind. 
What  this  general  consciousness  is,  may  be  attained  in  vari- 
ous ways  ;  from  the  languages,  laws,  manners  and  customs, 
proverbial  sayings,  literature  and  history  of  the  race ;  and  a 
fair  appeal  and  decision  here  must  be  final,  for  any  fact 
excluded  thereby  must  be  alterum  genus^  and  should  also 
be  excluded  from  the  philosophical  system.  Such  an  appeal 
to  general  consciousness  may  properly  be  termed  the  tribu- 
nal of  Common  Sense. 

Rational  Psychology  is  a  very  different  process  for 
attaining  to  a  Science  of  Mind,  and  lies  originally  in  a  very 
different  field  from  experience,  althor.gh  it  ultimately  brings 
all  its  attainments  within  an  experience.  As  this  is  the 
specific  subject  designed  for  present  investigation,  it  is  im- 
portant as  preliminary  thereto,  that  we  attain  a  clear  appre- 
hension of  what  it  is ;  and  it  may  also  be  of  advantage  to^ 


14  INTRODUCTION. 

examine  some  of  the  ends  to  which  it  may  be  applied,  and 
thus  beforehand  see  some  of  the  uses  to  which  it  may  be 
made  subservient. 

I.  An  explanation  of  what  Rational  Psychology  ifc 

In  thics  science,  we  pass  from  tne  lacts  oi  experience 
wholly  out  beyond  it,  and  seek  for  the  ratioiiale  of  experi- 
ence itself  in  the  necessary  and  universal  principles  which 
must  be  conditional  for  all  facts  of  a  possible  experience. 
We  seek  to  determine  how  it  is  possible  for  an  experience 
to  be,  from  those  a  priori  conditions  which  render  all  the 
functions  of  an  intellectual  agency  themselves  intelligible. 
In  the  conclusions  of  this  science  it  becomes  competent  for 
us  to  affirm,  not  as  from  mere  experience  we  may,  that  this 
is — but,  from  these  necessary  and  universal  principles,  that 
this  must  he.  The  intellect  is  itself  investigated  and  known 
through  the  principles  which  must  necessarily  control  all  its 
agency,  and  thereby  the  intellect  itself  is  expounded  in  its 
constituent  functions  and  laws  of  operation. 

An  illustration  of  what  such  a  Science  of  Mind  is,  may 
be  given  by  a  reference  to  other  things  as  subjects  of 
rational  comprehension.  Whatever  may  be  placed  in  the 
double  aspect  of  its  empirical  fxcts  and  its  conditional  prin- 
ciples, may  be  used  for  such  a  purpose.  Thus  Astronomy 
has  its  sublime  and  astonishing  facts,  gathered  through  a 
long  period  of  patient  and  careful  observation.  Experience 
has  been  competent  to  attain  the  appearances  and  move- 
ments of  the  heavenly  bodies ;  the  satellites  of  some  of  the 
planets,  and  their  relations  to  their  primaries  ;  the  ajoparent 
changes  of  figure  and  place  in  some,  and  the  occasional  tran- 
Bits  or  occultations  of  others.     The  jreneral  relations  of  dif 


WHAT    RATIONAL    PSYCHOLOGY    IS.  l^ 

ferent  portions  of  our  solar  system  have  in  this  way  been 
found ;  the  sun  put  in  its  place  at  the  center,  the  planets  put 
in  their  places  in  their  orbits  around  it,  with  the  direction, 
distance,  and  time  of  periodical  revolution  accurately  deter- 
mined. A  complete  diagram  of  the  solar  system  may  thus 
be  made  from  the  results  of  experience  alone,  and  all  that 
belongs  to  formal  Astronomy  be  finished.  In  this  process, 
through  experience,  we  are  competent  to  affirm,  so  the  solar 
system  is.  But  if  now,  on  the  other  hand,  beyond  experi- 
ence, we  may  somehow  attam  to  the  cognition  of  an  invisi- 
ble force,  which  must  work  through  the  system  directly  as 
the  quantity  of  matter  and  inversely  as  the  squares  of  the 
distance,  we  shall  be  competent  to  take  this  as  an  a  priori 
principle,  determining  experience  itself,  and  quite  independ- 
ently of  all  observation  may  affirm,  so  the  solar  system, 
must  be. 

Again,  I  take  a  body  of  a  triangular  form,  and  by  accu- 
rate mensuration  find  that  any  two  of  its  sides  are  together 
greater  than  the  third  side.  Another  triangular  body,  of 
diffiirent  size  and  proportion  of  its  sides,  is  also  accurately 
measured,  and  the  same  fact  is  again  found.  The  mensura- 
tion of  the  first  did  not  help  to  the  attainment  of  the  fact  in 
the  last,  but  an  experiment  only  ascertained  that  so  it  is. 
Repeated  experiments  may  have  been  made  of  a  vast  num- 
ber of  triangular  forms,  isosceles,  right-angled,  and  scalene, 
and  of  them  all,  at  last,  T  may  make  the  same  affirmation, 
this  is  ;  but  from  experience  I  am  not  warranted  to  include 
any  thing  else  than  so  it  is,  and  in  so  many  cases  as  the 
experiment  has  reached.  When,  however,  I  construct  for 
myself  a  triangle  in  pure  space,  and  intuitively  perceive  the 
relations  of  its  sides,  I  do  not  need  any  experiment,  but  ean 


16  INTRODUCTION. 

make  tliis  intuition  valid  universally,  and  affirm  for  all  possi- 
ble triangles,  so  the  facts  must  he. 

Such  everywhere  is  the  distinction  between  an  empirical 
and  a  rational  process.  In  the  one  we  have  the  facts  as 
they  appear ;  in  the  other,  we  have  the  conditioning  princi- 
ple which  determines  their  appearance,  and  which  makes 
our  experience  of  them  possible.  And  now,  the  human 
mind,  as  an  intelligent  and  free  agent,  may  as  readily  as  any 
other  subject,  admit  of  an  investigation  under  each  of  these 
aspects.  Facts  as  given  in  experience,  and  those  arranged 
in  an  orderly  system  as  they  appear  in  consciousness,  consti- 
tute Pyschology  in  that  important  division  which  we  have 
denominated  Empirical:  and  those  principles  which  give 
the  necessary  and  universal  laws  to  experience,  and  by 
which  intelligence  itself  is  alone  made  intelligible,  are  the 
elements  for  a  higher  Psychological  Science  which  we  term 
Rational.  So  far  as  this  science  is  made  to  proceed,  it  will 
give  an  exposition  of  the  human  mind  not  merely  in  the 
facts  of  experience,  but  in  the  more  adequate  and  compre- 
hensive manner,  according  to  the  necessary  laws  of  its 
being  and  action  as  a  free  intelligence.  It  will,  moreover, 
afford  a  position  from  which  we  may  overlook  the  whole 
field  of  possible  human  science,  and  determine  a  complete 
circumscription  to  our  experience ;  demonstrating  what  is 
possible,  and  the  validity  of  that  which  is  real.  In  it  is  the 
science  of  all  sciences,  inasmuch  as  it  gives  an  exposition  of 
Intelligence  itself. 

Such,  also,  is  truly  a  transcendental  philosophy  inasmuch 
as  it  transcends  experience,  and  goes  up  to  those  necessary 
sources  from  which  all  possible  experience  must  originate ; 
but  not  transcendental  in  that  sense  in  which  the  name  has 


WHAT    RATIONAL    PSYCHOLOGY    18.  Il 

become  a  derision  and  reproach  by  the  perversion  of  tlioee 
who  liave  assumed  it  and  dishonored  it,  and  with  whom  it 
has  been  a  transcending  of  all  light  and  meaning,  and  gohig 
oif  into  a  region  of  mere  dreams  and  shadows.  A  true 
transcendental  philosophy  dwells  perpetually  in  the  purest 
light,  and  sustahis  itself  by  the  soundest  demonstrations ; 
nor  is  it  practicable,  by  any  other  method  of  investigation, 
to  draw  a  clear  line  between  empiricism  and  science, 
assumption  and  demonstration,  facts  which  aj^pear  to  be 
and  principles  which  must  be. 

Pure  Mathematics,  and,  in  a  different  field,  pure  Physics 
also,  proceed  in  the  fom  and  sure  steps  of  a  demonstrated 
science,  because  they  go  out  utterly  beyond  all  appearance, 
and  attain  their  elements  from  a  region  transcending  all  that 
experience  can  reach.  They  deal  with  the  necessary  and 
the  universal,  and  hence,  as  resting  upon  that  which  must 
control  all  experience  and  make  it  possible,  it  can  never 
occur  that  any  facts  in  experience  should  come  in  contradic- 
tion to  them.  Nor  can  any  thing  assumed  to  be  philosophy 
and  attempting  to  pass  itself  off  as  science,  and  least  of  all 
psychological  science,  take  the  high  road  of  a  sound  and 
vaHd  demonstration,  except  it  shall  both  start  from  and  lay 
its  course  by,  the  stern  demand  and  rigid  rule  of  necessary 
princii^les.  True  science  must  be  both  supported  and 
directed  by  those  ultimate  truths,  which  are  selfaffirmed 
in  their  own  light,  and  which  both  must  be,  and  must 
everywhere  and  evermore  be.  An  empirical  system  may 
defend  itself  and  maintain  its  integrity  against  all  that  shall 
assail  it  from  within  ;  but  where  the  skeptic  resolutely  goes 
out  beyond  those  assumptions  which  are  conditional  for  it, 
and  calls  in  question  the  stability  of  its  very  foundation,  it 


IB  INTRODUCTION. 

is  Utterly  helpless.  Thus,  the  telescope  brings  distant 
objects  within  the  reach  of  observation,  and  thereby  vastly 
enlarges  the  sphere  of  vision.  By  its  aid  we  may  go  on 
in  tlie  addition  of  one  newly  discovered  phenomenon  to 
another  in  the  broad  fields  of  space,  and  enlarge  the  system 
embraced  in  experimental  astronomy  to  the  maximum  of 
power  which  may  be  attained  for  our  glasses.  We  need 
have  no  other  solicitude  for  the  validity  of  our  system  as 
empirical,  save  only  in  the  assurance  of  a  correct  observa- 
tion. If  any  doubts  spring  up  within  the  facts  of  our 
science,  we  can  repeat  the  observation  at  pleasure  and 
dispel  them.  But  when,  at  length,  we  encounter  the 
skeptic  who  will  not  shut  himself  up  within  our  condi- 
tioning assumption  of  the  validity  of  telescopic  observation, 
and  seriously  questions  the  correctness  of  this  w^hole  man- 
ner of  appearances,  and  of  seeing  new  objects  through 
magnifying  glasses,  most  surely  we  shall  avail  nothing  in 
attempting  to  cure  this  skepticism  by  multiplying  our 
experiments  and  making  such  objects  to  appear  through 
the  telescope,  nor  even  by  forcing  the  skeptic  to  the  con- 
sciousness that  he  sees  them  there  himself.  He  is  assailing 
the  system  from  a  point  utterly  beyond  all  the  facts  of 
observation,  and  with  fatal  effect  disturbing  the  integrity  of 
astronomical  science  in  its  very  foundation,  and  must  needs 
be  met  in  the  very  point  of  his  doubts  and  forced  to  the 
conviction  that  the  laws  of  telescopic  vision  are  valid. 
And  surely  this  can  not  be  done  by  looking  through  the 
telescope,' nor  even  by  taking  it  to  pieces  and  subjecting 
all  its  parts  to  careful  inspection.  We  shall  be  obliged 
to  attain  those  optical  princij^les  which  are  conditional  for 
all  making  of  telescopes,  and  thus  know   how  telescopic 


WHAT    RATIONAL    PSYCHOLOGY    IS.  19 

rision  is  possible  in  its  own  conditioning  laws,  and  deter- 
mine what  must  he  by  a  rational  demonstration,  and  ic 
this  process  only  can  we  force  snch  an  assailing  skepticism 
from  its  position. 

As  is  the  telescope  an  instrument  for  the  eye,  so  is  the 
eye,  and  all  the  organism  of  sense,  an  instrument  for  the 
intellect.  While  we  are  solicitous  about  the  facts  as  they 
appear  in  the  sense  merely,  we  shall  find  no  difficulty  in 
building  up  our  empirical  system  and  maintaining  the  vali- 
dity of  our  philosophy.  Yea,  if  we  wish  to  take  the 
mental  organism  itself  in  pieces  and  examine  its  varied 
phenomena,  and  put  all  together  again  according  to 
observed  connections  and  relationships,  an  empirical  psy- 
chology may  be  thus  readily  attained,  and  a  system  of 
mental  science  completed.  But  when  we  meet  with  a 
skepticism  which  plants  its  objections  back  of  all  experi- 
ence, and  doubts  altogether  about  this  whole  matter  of 
api)earance  in  the  senses,  then  are  we  doing  absolutely 
nothing  for  science  except  as  we  also  go  back  of  experi- 
ence, and  by  a  rigid  transcendental  demonstration  deter- 
mine from  the  conditioning  principles  of  all  intelligence 
how  experience  in  the  senses  is  possible  to  be ;  and  then,  by 
this,  also  demonstrate  in  the  facts  their  validity,  inasmuch 
as  they  are  found  actually  to  be,  what  from  their  condition- 
ing laws  it  has  already  been  seen  that  they  must  be.  There 
is  a  skepticism  which  resolutely  and  perseveringly  questions 
all  validity  of  experience,  and  doubts  the  whole  testimony 
of  consciousness  relatively  to  the  reality  of  all  being ;  yea, 
that  founds  itself  upon  an  alleged  contradiction  of  reason 
and  consciousness,  and  thereby  demonstrates  the  necessity 
of  absolute  and  universal  skepticism ;  and  while  to  such  all 


20  INTRODUCTION. 

experience  must  be  a  mere  seeming  to  5e,  with  no  reality, 
this  can  certainly  never  be  cured  by  any  repetition  of 
appearances  merely  as  they  seem  to  be.  A  solid  basis  for 
science  is  here  attainable  by  no  other  possible  process  than 
through  the  insight  and  conclusions  of  a  Kational  Psycho- 
logy. The  want  is  both  seen  and  felt,  that  something 
not  of  experience  should  be  given,  by  which  to  demon- 
strate the  validity  of  experience;  nor  will  thinking  minds 
be  long  deeply  interested  in  any  speculations  which  do 
not  attempt,  at  least,  to  go  up  to  the  original  and  condi- 
tioning sources  of  all  knowledge. 

The  history  of  philosophy  furnishes  here  ample  instruc- 
tion. Those  investigations  only  which  have  sought  to  rise 
to  their  conditioning  principles,  in  reference  to  the  subject 
in  hand,  have  laid  any  very  strong  grasp  upon  the  philo- 
sophical mind,  or  fixed  the  attention  of  tliinking  men  for 
any  long  period.  More  especially  is  this  true  in  reference 
to  all  philosophy  which  subjects  the  human  mind  to  examin- 
ation, and  gives  its  theory  for  expounding  man's  intellectual 
and  moral  agency.  If  the  whole  be  left  to  repose  upon  the 
mere  affirmations  of  common  sense,  and  thus  the  whole 
science  be  circumscribed  by  the  limits  of  general  experience 
in  consciousness,  it  can  not  meet  this  philosophical  want, 
and  will  not  hold  the  interest  of  philosophical  minds.  The 
point  of  all  dangerous  skepticism  is  wholly  out  of  and 
beyond  the  experience  in  which  common  sense  originates, 
and  if  this  is  not  at  all  sought  for,  and  the  efibrt,  at  least, 
made  to  reach  this  point  and  demolish  the  skepticism,  the 
influence  of  the  work  must  be  limited  to  those  minds  which 
have  not  yet  seen  the  difficulty,  and  felt  the  need  of  a 
bigher  demonstration.     Thus,  whatever  the  subject  under 


WHAT    RATIONAL    PSYCHOLOGY    IS.  21 

examination  may  be,  the  skej)ticism  which  endangers  it  as  a 
philosophy  will  ever  lie  at  its  foundation,  and  can  only  be 
met  by  going  back  of  its  facts  and  giving  validity  to  its 
conditioning  principles  ;  and  such  studies  as  are  directed  to 
such  a  2jriori  principles  will  alone  possess  any  philosophical 
interest. 

This  is  the  very  spirit  of  the  far-famed  Socratic  method 
of  2)hiloso23hizing,  and  in  this  lies  its  influence  and  its  inter- 
est. By  a  series  of  skillful  interrogatories,  Socrates  forced 
the  disciple  back  to  the  elementary  principles  of  the  subject 
under  discussion,  and  made  him  to  seek  some  conditioning 
truth,  clear  in  its  own  light,  and  on  which  all  subsequent 
deductions  might  be  seen  to  be  safely  dependent.  The 
scholar  was  in  this  way  made  cautious  and  docile,  and 
the  sophist  was  driven  to  expose  his  own  ignorance  amid 
all  his  shallow  pretensions.  Plato,  the  most  illustrious 
of  his  disciples,  and  the  world's  great  teacher  in  philosophy, 
still  more  thoroughly  pursued  science  up  to  her  primitive 
sources.  The  Intellectual  Idea  was  taken  as  the  archetype 
and  ^?^forming  essence,  and  only  in  this  could  facts  be  made 
intelligible,  and  by  this  only  could  nature  be  interpreted. 
Aristotle,  in  succession,  no  less  rigidly  forced  philosophy 
upward  to  the  science  of  first  principles.  His  investiga- 
tions regarded  the  modes  in  which  nature  manifests  herself 
in  facts  and  phenomena,  rather  than  the  inherent  forces  and 
laws  which  condition  her  development ;  yet  it  is  only 
through  these  conditioning  laws  that  any  portion  of  nature 
can  be  adequately  expounded.  He  sought  rather  to  reduce 
science  to  its  logical  elements,  and  to  find  here  the  condi- 
tioning sources  of  all  correct  concluding  in  judgments. 
These  sages  of  antiquity  have  held  their  power  over   the 


22  IIJ^TKODUCTION. 

philosophic  thinking  of  ages,  and  their  voice  has  penetrated 
through  more  than  twenty  centuries,  and  is  still  distinct  to 
teach  all  wlio  have  ears  to  hear. 

The  dialectical  conflicts  of  the  school-men,  long  exer- 
cised the  minds  of  men  in  the  most  subtle  and  often  empty 
speculations,  and  ultimately  exhausted  all  the  resources  of 
eyllogistic  disputation,  and  wearied  the  world  with  its 
abstract  terms  and  dry  logical  distinctions.  Descartes 
sought  to  bring  oack  philosophy  again  to  the  study  of 
things  in  their  first  principles.  The  germ  of  his  system 
lies  in  the  following  extract :  "  It  is  absurd  to  suppose  that 
which  thinks  not  to  be  in  the  very  time  in  which  it  thinks. 
And  hence  this  cognition — Ithink^  therefore  I  am — is  the 
first  and  most  certain  which  may  occur  to  any  one  philoso- 
phizing in  order."  Thought,  as  the  essence  of  spirit,  and 
extension  as  the  essence  of  matter,  make  up  the  universe  of 
being,  and  as  opposites  and  incommunicable  in  their  own 
nature,  are  brought  and  held  together  in  communion 
through  the  doctrine  of  "  divine  assistance."  Sj^inoza  iden- 
tified thought  and  extension  in  a  higher  substance,  and 
made  all  modes  of  spiritual  and  material  being  only  a  mani- 
fested development  of  this  higher  existence.  Leibnitz  sub- 
limated all  being  into  indivisible  atoms,  and  as  thus  indis- 
tinguishable by  any  outer,  they  must  be  distinguished  eacli 
from  each  by  an  inner  peculiarity,  and  which,  analagous  to 
mind,  is  a  faculty  of  representing.  Every  atom  with  its 
inner  representation-force  was  thus  a  monad,  and  when  rep- 
resenting in  unconsciousness,  is  matter;  when  partially  con- 
scious, is  animal ;  when  in  full  self-consciousness,  is  human 
soul ;  and  the  Absolute  Monad  arranges  all  the  representa- 
tions through  a  "  pveSstablished  harmony." 


WHAT    EATIONAL    PSYCHOLOGY    IS.  23 

Lord  Bacon,  also,  as  the  great  modern  expounder  of 
Inductive  Philosophy,  urges  to  the  investigation  of  nature 
not  in  scattered  and  isolated  facts,  but  in  their  inherent 
laws  which  bind  them  together  in  systematic  unity.  An 
intellectual  analysis  into  fact  and  law,  matter  and  form, 
must  be  made  through  all  subjects  of  science,  and  thus 
nature  must  be  dissolved,  not  chemically  by  fire,  but  intel- 
lectually as  by  a  divine  fire.  And  Locke,  again,  turned  his 
inquiry  to  primitive  sources  that  he  might  accurately  cir- 
cumscribe the  entire  field  of  human  knowledge.  While  he 
has  laid  the  foundation  for  only  a  very  partial  philosophy  in 
the  rejection  of  all  a  priori  knowledge,  yet  from  the  force 
and  clearness  of  his  investigation  of  sensation  and  experi- 
ence, he  has  for  more  than  a  century  and  a  half  held  sway 
over  much  the  larger  portion  of  the  philosophic  mind  of 
Britain  and  America.  Out  of  this  system  have  arisen  the 
idealism  of  Berkely,  the  vibration  theory  of  Hartley,  the 
materialism  of  Diderot  and  Helvetius,  the  universal  skepti- 
cism of  Ilume,  and,  for  the  counteraction  of  the  last,  the 
common  sense  basis  for  all  philosophy  as  assumed  by  Reid 
and  most  of  the  Scotch  Metaphysicians. 

And  once  more  only,  it  may  emphatically  be  said  that 
for  more  than  half  a  century  the  deep  and  strong  current  of 
German  thought  has  been  impelled  and  directed  in  its 
course  by  the  profound  critical  investigations  of  Kant,  rel;v 
live  to  tlie  origin  and  validity  of  all  knowledge.  He  says, 
*'Up  to  tiiis  time  it  has  been  received  that  all  our  cognition 
must  regulate  itself  according  to  the  objects;  yet  all 
attempts  to  make  out  something  a  priori  by  rjeims  of  con- 
ceptions concerning  such,  whereby  our  cognitions  would  be 
extended,   have   proved    under   this    supposition   aboi-tiv** 


24  INTKODUCTION. 

Let  it  be  once,  therefore,  tried  whether  we  do  not  succeed 
better  in  the  problems  of  metaphysics,  when  we  admit  that 
the  objects  must  reguhite  themselves  according  to  our  cog- 
nitions." This  reversed  order  of  investigation  is  the  pecu- 
liarity of  the  Critical  Philosophy,  and  is  analogous  to  that 
change  in  the  stand-point  for  all  investigation  which 
occurred  in  astronomy,  when  the  sun  was  put  in  the  centci' 
of  the  system  and  the  observer  carried  around  it,  instead  of 
the  spectator  being  himself  at  rest  and  the  sun  revolving. 
And  we  need  to  add  merely  this  remark,  that  in  general, 
whether  as  disciples  or  opponents  of  Kant,  the  thinking 
mind  in  Germany,  and  of  those  who  have  been  aroused  by 
German  speculations,  have  found  the  interest  of  the  investi- 
gations to  he  in  the  deep  and  earnest  search  after  determin- 
ing principles.  Nor  is  this  fact  at  all  discredited  by  the 
querulous  complaints  and  captious  reproaches  from  such  as 
find  the  ground  of  these  speculations  too  high  for  the  atten- 
tion they  have  given  to  them,  since  there  is  at  least  the 
interest  to  have  seemed  to  have  formed  a  judgment  about 
that  which  they  have  not  as  yet  at  all  comprehended. 

The  prevailing  system  of  metaphysics  must  necessarily 
strongly  affect  all  cotemporary  physical  investigation,  and 
very  much  mold  all  natural  science  after  its  own  forms. 
All  philosophy  must  strike  its  i-oots  in  the  reason,  and  its 
first  principles  must  be  found  or  assumed  from  beyond  the 
empirical,  and  entirely  within  the  transcendental.  The 
physical  can  find  no  law  of  exposition  save  in  the  metaphys- 
ical. It  is  in  this  field  that  the  foundations  of  all  systematic 
pliilosophy  must  be  laid,  for  if  these  are  assumptions  solely, 
their  concl  isions,  whether  salutary  or  dangerous,  can 
neither   be   sustained   nor    refuted   by   other   assumptions. 


WHAT    RATIONAL    PSYCHOLOGY    IS.  25 

Assumption  and  counter-assumption  may  forever  stand,  the 
one  over  against  the  other,  and  there  sliall  be  no  force,  in 
either  to  demoUsh  its  opposite.  We  must  be  able  to  g^ 
over  into  its  metaphysical  region,  and  secure  here  a  legiti- 
mate possession,  or  we  can  never  give  to  our  assumed 
science  authority  in  its  own  right  to  eject  the  intruding 
skeptic,  nor  forbid  that  he  should  any  where  at  pleasure 
erect  his  fortifications  in  hostility.  An  empirical  system, 
standing  upon  assumptions,  can  at  the  best  only  maintain 
itself  in  possession  while  its  original  right  remains  unques- 
tioned. When  the  title-deeds  are  contested  in  the  grounds 
of  their  valid  authority,  it  can  not  avail  to  produce  any  of 
the  declarations  and  statements  within  them,  but  we  must 
confirm  their  legitimacy  by  somethmg  beyond  the  instru- 
ment itself,  and  hold  possession  from  the  evidence  that  they 
reach  back  and  take  hold  on  the  original  powers  of  sover- 
eignty. The  most  incorrigible  skepticism  may  remain 
utterly  undisturbed  in  any  philosophy,  except  as  it  is  com- 
petent to  give  to  its  first  principles  a  sound  and  clear  a 
priori  demonstration. 

And  here  we  would  remark,  that  it  enters  into  the  very 
essence  of  Rational  Psychology,  to  make  this  a  priori  inves- 
tigation of  the  human  intellect ;  to  attain  the  idea  of  intel- 
ligence, trom  the  conditions  which  make  an  intellectual 
agency  possible,  and  thereby  determine  how,  if  there  bo 
intelligence,  it  must  be  both  in  function  and  operation ;  and 
then  find  the  facts  which  shall  evince  that  such  intellectual 
agency  is  not  only  possible  as  idea  in  void  thought,  but  is 
also  actual  as  valid  being  in  reality.  Such  an  attainment  in 
psychological  science,  may  open  the  way  to  the  determina- 
tion of  the  validity  of  all  science,  inasmuch  as  in  this  pro- 


20  INTEODUOTIOA*. 

cess  we  attain  the  very  laws  of  human  intelligence  itself, 
und  may  tiierefore  use  our  position  for  determining  the  valid 
Jjuing  of  the  objects  given  through  such  an  intellectual 
agency.  And  this  introduces  another  preliminary  topic  for 
exammation,  to  which  we  will  now  turn  our  attention. 

II.  The  ends  to  which  the  coxclusions  of  Rational 
Psychology  may  be  rendered  subservient. 

Rational  Psychology  is  itself  a  science,  and  complete  in 
its  own  department.  It  gives  the  Mind,  through  all  its 
functions  of  intellectual  agency,  in  the  conditioning  laws 
which  control  all  its  operations  and  interpret  all  its  pro- 
cesses of  knowledge  ;  and  wdien  thus  completed  it  has  filled 
its  own  measure  and  answered  its  own  end.  But  interest- 
ing as  is  this  Science  of  the  Mind,  and  worthy  to  be  pur- 
sued for  its  own  sake,  and  competent  to  give  satisfaction 
even  when  resting  within  its  own  conclusions,  yet  is  there 
the  opportunity  of  starting  from  its  results,  and  making  its 
conclusions  subservient  to  further  advances.  It  may  be 
rendered  directly  instrumental  in  the  solution  of  some  of 
the  most  interesting  and  difficult  problems  within  the  A\hole 
compass  of  the  sciences.  Indeed,  through  no  other  process 
is  it  practicable  to  obtain  a  position,  from  whence  some  of 
the  highest  points  in  philosophy  may  be  brought  w^ithin  the 
range  of  direct  examination. 

There  are  many  questions,  involving  the  highest  specula- 
tive and  practical  interests  of  mankind,  which  stand  pre- 
cisely in  this  condition,  that  they  receive  a  ready  assent  in 
the  common  conviction,  and  control  the  universal  conduct 
of  the  world ;  and  yet  when  this  universal  assent  is  care- 
fully examined,  and  the  effort  is  made  to  trace  the  convio- 


USES     OF    llATIOXAL    PSYCHOLOGY.  27 

ticu  up  to  its  original  ground,  it  is  found  to  rest  whouy 
upon  assumption.  All  attempts  to  elucidate  the  correaucss 
and  to  settle  the  validity  of  such  convictions,  are  soon 
found  to  be  utterly  impracticable  except  through  some  pro- 
cess of  a  rational  investigation.  All  experimental  processes 
must  faU,  for  the  point  of  difficulty  lies  beyond  experiment, 
even  in  that  which  is  cc  nditional  that  there  may  be  any 
experience.  The  attempt  to  forestall  all  such  inquiry  by 
affirming  that  such  convictions  are  themselves  ultimate 
facts,  and  not  possible  to  be  made  any  clearer  by  any  efforts 
toward  a  higher  investigation,  inasmuch  as  these  convic- 
tions are  themselves  the  highest  point  of  possible  attain- 
ment, can  not  afford  any  satisfaction  to  philosophy,  since  it 
is  really  but  affirming  that  all  philosophy  and  science  are 
impossibihties,  and  all  knowledge  is  but  a  resting  at  last  on 
mere  arbitrary  foundations.  All  that  can  be  done  is  to  say 
that  so  it  appears,  and  as  appearance  gives  this  conviction 
which  is  our  ultimate  fact,  we  affirm  that  so  it  is  ;  and  here 
we  must  stop  short  in  all  attempts  to  rise  to  any  higher 
position  where  we  may  further  affirm  so  it  must  he.  When 
any  one  speculatively  doubts  the  validity  of  these  facts  in 
experience,  or  even  assumes  to  have  proved  them  to  be  fal- 
lacious, there  is  nothing  that  can  at  all  be  answered,  except 
still  to  ui'ge  this  fact  of  universal  belief  from  common  sense, 
including  the  skeptic  himself,  and  there  rest  as  havuig 
reached  the  ultimate  point  of  human  attainment,  and  leave 
ohe  skeptic  to  his  doubts  if  he  must  still  be  so  philosophical, 
and  so  little  under  the  dominion  of  common  sense,  as  to 
have  them.  The  empirical  philosopher  and  the  reasoning 
skeptic,  it  is  quite  manifest,  may  here  stand  the  one  over 
against  the  other  in  j^erpetual  contradiction,  hopeless  of  all 


::8  INTRODUCTION. 

reconciliation  and  agreement.  Their  respective  positicnf! 
perpetuate  the  everlasting  conflict  of  two  counter- assump- 
tions ;  one,  that  the  convictions  of  common  sense  are  ulti- 
mate ;  the  other,  that  reason  goes  beyond  all  experience, 
or  at  least  goes  against  it  and  falsifies  its  convictions. 
On  his  OAvn  premises  each  may  maintain  his  own  conclu- 
sions, and  yet  neither  can  go  back  to  the  assumption  of  his 
antagonist,  and  obtain  a  final  triumph  by  demolishing  it. 

And  now,  some  of  these  very  questions  may  be  brought 
within  the  scope  of  a  clear  examination,  from  the  position 
to  which  a  Rational  Psychology  reaches.  Having  gained 
its  own  end,  and  given  the  human  intellect  as  determined  in 
a  demonstrated  science,  it  may  be  used  for  the  further  pur- 
pose of  settling  the  conflicts  of  these  counter-assumptions  ; 
nor  will  it  be  practicable  to  make  any  thing  else  subservient 
to  such  a  desirable  issue.  And  it  may  subserve  the  double 
purpose  of  illustrating  the  great  importance  of  a  strictly 
transcendental  philosophy,  and  by  overlooking  the  field  in 
general  give  a  better  preparation  for  our  future  exploration 
thereof,  if  we  here  make  a  particular  and  somewhat 
extended  reference  to  some  of  the  more  important  of  these 
questions,  in  the  exact  order  in  which  they  stand  related  to 
the  conclusions  of  a  Rational  Psychology. 

I.  The  objects  given  in  sense  are  out  of,  and  in  some 
cases  at  a  distance  from,  the  knoAving  agent.  This  is 
especially  true  of  the  objects  given  by  the  sense  of  smell, 
of  hearing,  and  of  sight.  One  will  suffice  for  the  illustra- 
tion of  all,  and  as  the  better  adapted  to  a  clear  exemplifica- 
tion we  will  take  the  object  as  given  in  vision.  The  prob- 
lem which  philosophy  has  felt  herself  called  upon  to  solve  is 
this :     How  may  the  intellect  know  that  which  is  out  of, 


WSES     OF    EATIOXAL    PSYCHOLOGY.  29 

and  at  a  distance  from,  itself?  The  general  admission  has 
been  that  in  some  way  the  object  must  aftect  the  sensible 
organ  by  impulse.  An  impression  is  thereby  made  upon, 
or  an  affection  produced  within  the  organism,  which  by  its 
nervous  susceptibility  perpetuates  the  affection  and  commu- 
nicates it  to  the  brain,  and  through  the  brain  the  affection  is 
carried  up  to  the  point  of  its  communication  with  the  intel- 
ligent spirit,  and  there  in  the  secret  penetralium  of  the 
spirit's  dwelling-place  a  junction  is  formed  between  the 
invading  impulse  and  the  receiving  intellect,  the  mind 
thereby  attains  its  knowledge  of  the  object,  and  the  pro- 
cess of  perception  is  completed.  But,  inasmuch  as  nothing 
can  act  except  where  it  is,  and  when  it  is ;  and  the  object  is 
not  where  the  point  of  the  mind's  receiving  agency  is,  but 
sometimes  at  a  great  distance  therefrom ;  it  follows  that 
there  must  at  this  ]3oint  of  perception  be  some  representa- 
tive of  the  distant  object.  This  representative  is  what  is 
directly  perceived,  and  by  it  the  distant  object  is  made 
known.  Such  a  theory  modified  in  minor  particulars  by 
different  philosophers,  induced  the  necessary  conclusion  that 
all  knowledge  of  an  outer  world  is  mediate,  through  repre- 
sentatives of  its  objects,  and  never  direct  as  an  immediate 
perception  of  the  objects  themselves. 

In  the  investigations  to  which  this  theory  of  representa- 
tive perception  of  objects  was  subjected,  many  perplexing 
queries  arose,  and  different  philosphers  answered  them, 
each  in  his  own  way,  as  he  best  could.  What  is  this 
representative  of  the  outer  object — a  spiritual  or  a  material 
being?  Is  it  an  image  of  the  object  as  excerpt  and 
detached  from  it?  or  originated  in  the  brain?  or  in  the 
intellect?  or  in  some  media  between  the  object  and  the 


so  INTKODUCTION. 

organ  ?  Does  the  representative  at  all  exist  when  the  mind 
is  unconscious  of  the  perception  ?  May  it  not  be  a  direct 
creation  and  infused  into  the  mind  by  divine  agency  ?  Yea, 
may  not  these  representatives  be  in  the  Deity,  and  identical 
with  the  divine  essence,  and  that  thus,  according  to  the 
theory  of  Malebranche,  "  we  see  all  things  in  God  ?"  But 
however  these  connected  queries  may  have  been  answered, 
the  general  doctrine  of  perception  remained,  that  not  the 
object  but  some  representative  thereof  was  immediately 
given  to  the  sense.  From  this  a  two-fold  skepticism 
naturally  arose,  one  or  the  other  face  being  presented 
according  to  the  side  on  which  the  theory  Avas  carried 
out  to  its  issue. 

On  one  side,  this  theory  of  mediate  perception  gave 
occasion  for  a  skepticism  in  reference  to  the  reality  of  all 
external  objects.  How  can  the  correctness  of  our  percep- 
tions be  at  all  determined  ?  If  we  say  the  representative  is 
^ke  the  object,  it  can  be  only  a  mere  assumption,  inasmuch 
as  no  comparison  can  be  instituted  between  them,  for  the 
representative  only  is  given ;  and  if  by  any  means  the 
object  could  be  attained  for  a  comparison,  then  would  the 
representative  and  all  comparison  with  it  be  wholly  super- 
fluous. Yea,  inasmuch  as  the  representatives  are  all  that  the 
intellect  possesses,  how  is  it  possible  that  we  may  know 
that  any  thing  other  than  the  representatives  really  exist  ? 
The  representative  is  indeed  the  only  object  in  conscious- 
ness. Berkeley's  argument  is  still  more  stringently  drawn. 
All  that  can  be  knoT\m  is  through  the  mediate  representa- 
tions of  sensation  ;  and  all  that  can  come  within  conscious- 
ness is  the  sensation  itself-,  and  this  sensation  as  wholly 
mental  can  have  no  likeness  to  any  material  objectiv^e  being 


USES  OF  RATIONAL  PSYCHOLOGY. 

To  suppose  that  mental  sensations  and  material  objects  can 
resemble  each  other  would  confound  nimd  and  matter 
together.  The  conclusion,  in  his  oa\ti  language,  necei^sarily 
follows  :  "The  existence  of  a  body  out  of  a  mhid  perceiv- 
ing it  is  not  only  impossible  and  a  contradiction  in  terms, 
but  were  it  possible  and  even  real,  it  were  impossible  that 
the  mind  should  ever  know  it." 

This  conclusion  of  Bishop  Berkeley  was  not  at  all  the 
offspring  of  a  religious  skepticism.  By  giving  up  the 
knowledge  of  an  outer  material  world  and  holding  on  to 
the  knowledge  of  an  inner  mental  world,  he  assumed  that 
the  skepticism  in  religion,  which  follows  so  readily  and  in 
his  view  so  necessarily  from  the  theory  that  inert  matter 
can  become  a  mental  idea,  was  wholly  avoided.  By  exclud- 
ing all  knowledge  of  matter  he  thought  to  save  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  soul,  and  thereby  a  firm  ground  for  the  doc- 
trines and  duties  and  immortal  hopes  of  religion.  And 
thus  it  was  that  on  this  side,  the  doctrine  of  mediate  per- 
ception terminated  in  Idealism — or,  more  correctly,  Sensa- 
tionallsm — which  denies  all  knowledge  of  the  reality  of 
objective  behig,  save  as  it  exists  in  the  sensations  of  the 
mind  itself 

On  the  other  side,  this  theory  produced  to  its  issue 
attains  to  a  skepticism  still  more  startling.  The  impres- 
sion made  by  the  outer  object,  and  acting  upon  the  nicely 
arranged  organism  of  the  sense,  puts  in  motion  the  animal 
spirits  or  gives  vibration  to  the  nervous  and  cerebral  fila- 
ments, and  thereby  propagates  its  peculiar  motions  and 
manifestations  onward  to  the  sensorium,  in  AA'hich  the  sen- 
sation becomes  perfected  in  a  complete  perception.  But, 
inasmuch  as  no  motion  extending  throughout  any  material 


32  INTRODUCTION. 

organization  may  at  all  propagate  its  movement  beyond 
what  is  material  in  the  organic  sphere,  so  there  can  be 
no  possible  projection  of  any  representation  of  the  object 
by  such  motion  out  of  the  organism  and  into  some  supposed 
spiritual  receptacle,  wliich  as  without  parts  must  be  utterly 
incompetent  to  receive  oi  transmit  any  representation  by 
impulse.  The  representative  of  the  outer  object  can  never 
be  carried  beyond  tlie  sphere  of  the  material  organization, 
and  therefore  all  percej^tion  by  means  of  this  representation 
must  be  completed  somewhere  within  the  material  organ- 
ization itself  All  perception  is  perfected  in  the  subtle, 
refined,  yet  still  material  organism.  An  impinging  force 
from  without  communicates  its  impulse  to  the  material 
arrangements  within,  and  in  the  peculiar  modification  thus 
given  to  these  organic  particles,  there  originate  perceptions, 
feelings,  and  thoughts.  Various  explanations  may  be  made 
in  reference  to  the  manner  how,  but  all  spiritual  agency  is 
excluded,  from  the  necessity  that  impulses  and  motions 
must  be  wholly  material.  "  Consciousness  itself,"  says 
Hobbes,  "  is  the  agitation  of  our  internal  organism,  deter- 
mined by  the  unknown  motions  of  a  supposed  outer  world." 
Thought  is  the  product  of  sublimated  and  skillfully  arranged 
particles  of  matter  put  in  motion  by  the  representative  of 
some  outer  object.  To  reverse  the  process,  and  begin  with 
the  completed  perception  tracing  it  backwards,  will  also 
arrive  at  the  same  conclusion  after  the  manner  of  Diderot 
and  the  school  of  the  French  Encyclopedists.  Every  cog- 
nition when  carried  back  in  its  ultimate  analysis  must 
resolve  itself  into  some  sensible  representation  ;  that  which 
produced  this  representation  in  the  sense  must  have  come 
K'ithin  the  organization  from  some  external  impression  or 


USES     OF     RATIO  XAL     PSYCHOLOGY.         33 

affection;  unci  thus  all  which  may  ever  be  in  possession  of 
the  intellect,  and  which  is  not  wholly  a  chimera,  must  be 
able  to  again  be  attached  to  its  own  original  archetype 
Thus  on  this  side  philosophy  is  forced  to  Materialism^  the 
doubting  of  all  but  material  being. 

And  here  we  may  say,  that  the  rational  psychology  of 
sense  may  be  made  subservient  to  the  demonstration  of  all 
that  sense  gives  to  us.  Spiritual  acts  and  material  qualities 
can  be  proved  truly  to  appear.  The  sense  can  give  no  men- 
tal essence  nor  material  substance,  and  from  its  psychology 
w^e  can  prove  the  being  of  neither ;  but  Ave  may  demon- 
strate a  true  appearance  of  mental  exercises  and  material 
qualities  and  events. 

II.  There  is  a  more  important  end  in  the  destruction  of  a 
still  deeper  skepticism  to  which  the  results  of  this  science 
may  be  applied,  and  which  will  bo  disclosed  in  the  follow- 
ing remarks  : 

The  sense  is  a  medium  for  perception  in  which  are  given 
the  qualities  of  an  outer,  and  the  exercises  of  an  inner 
world.  Colors,  sounds,  tastes,  etc.,  are  revealed  in  con- 
sciousness through  sensation ;  and  thinking,  feeling,  choos- 
ing, etc.,  are  also  revealed  in  consciousness  through  an  inner 
sense.  All  these  accidents  of  an  outer  world  of  matter  and 
an  inner  world  of  mind,  as  given  in  perception,  may  be 
demonstrated  as  realities  from  the  results  of  rational 
psychology  in  its  determination  of  the  laws  of  perception. 
But,  while  much  is  attained  for  science  in  demonstrating  the 
validity  of  our  perceptions,  there  are  ^  still  more  important 
regions  beyond,  yet  insecurely  held  in  possession  by  philos- 
ophy. We  have  thus  the  reality  of  the  thinking,  but  not 
t)  e  thinker ;  the  reality  of  color,  but  not  the  thing  colored 

2* 


H.  INTRODUCTION. 

Tlie  accidents  are  known  but  not  that  in  wliicli  the  acci- 
dents inhere.  All  qualities  as  given  in  sense  stand  discon- 
nected, and  can  not  by  perception  alone  be  put  together  in 
their  existence  as  the  common  properties  of  one  and  the 
same  subject.  I  perceive  a  redness,  a  fragrance,  a  silky- 
smoothness  ;  but  I  do  not  perceive  through  sense  tliat  in 
which  they  all  inliere  as  one  tiling — the  rose — so  that  I  can 
say  I  perceive  the  rose  as  a  thing  in  itself,  and  then  more- 
over perceive  that  the  rose  is  red,  fragrant,  smooth,  etc. 
I  perceive  in  the  inner  sense  that  there  is  a  thinking,  feel- 
ing, and  chooshig ;  but  I  do  not  perceive  the  mind,  and  then 
perceive  this  one  mind  to  think,  feel,  and  choose.  It  is  only 
through  a  discursive  judgment  that  I  can  connect  them  in 
one  common  subject ;  and  the  sense  does  not  judr/e,  it  only 
perceives.  It  may  be  made  valid  for  real  qualities  and 
events^  but  it  can  never  attain  suhstcuices  and  causes. 

And  now,  it  is  by  these  notions  of  substance  and  cause 
that  we  can  extend  our  knov/ledge  at  all  beyond  the  mere 
isolated  qualities  as  they  appear  in  sense.  We  put  the  sev- 
eral qualities,  not  merely  into  one  group  as  in  the  same 
place,  but  into  one  substance  as  existing  in  the  same  thing ; 
and  also  the  events,  not  merely  as  successive  in  a  tune,  but 
as  originating  in  one  cause  as  the  same  source.  And  when 
we  thus  connect  qualities  and  events  as  perceived.,  in  their 
notions  of  substance  and  cause  as  understood^  we  may 
then  greatly  extend  our  knowledge  in  several  ways.  Had 
we  the  faculty  of  perception  through  sense  alone,  we  could 
merely  attain  the  predicates  of  qualities.,  as  less  and  more, 
like  and  unlike,  outer  and  inner,  antecedent  and  consequent, 
etc.,  and  m  hich  stand  only  in  the  conjunctions  of  space  and 
time ;  but  by  the  faculty  of  the  understanding  which  con- 


USES     OF    RATIONAL    PSYCIIOLOCrY.  33 

uects  qualities  as  existing  in  things,  we  attain  these  quali- 
ties as  the  predicates  of  substances^  and  thereby  a  great 
enlargement  of  judgment  is  effected. 

Thus,  in  my  notion  of  substance  in  which  the  qualities 
inhere,  I  have  the  conception  of  hody  j  and  by  simple 
reflection  upon  this  conception  I  can  say  that  all  bodies 
must  have  extension,  figure,  position,  divisibility,  unpen e- 
trability,  etc.,  as  priimary  qualities.  And  in  the  same  way, 
in  my  notion  of  cause,  I  have  the  conception  of  an  ageiit^ 
and  by  merely  reflecting  upon  this  conception  I  may  say 
that  all  agents  must  have  force,  activity,  passivity,  etc.,  as 
their  primary  attributes.  And  in  this  I  have  not  mere 
predicates  of  qualities,  but  predicates  of  things.  And  then, 
moreover,  I  may  add  to  such  things^  all  the  qualities  which 
the  perceptions  of  the  sense  can  attain,  as  their  secondary 
qualities.  Thus  of  some  body — gold — in  addition  to  the 
primary  qualities  common  to  all  bodies,  I  may  say  from  the 
perceptions  of  sense,  that  it  is  yellow,  fusible,  malleable, 
soluble  in  aqua  regia,  etc. ;  and  of  some  agent — the  sun — 
that  it  has  not  only  tlie  primary  attributes  common  to  all 
agents,  but  also  that  it  imparts  light  and  heat,  melts  wax, 
liardens  clay,  converts  liquids  into  vapor,  etc.  In  this  way 
I  may  enlarge  my  knowledge  of  things  as  far  as  I  may 
extend  my  perceptions,  and  know  not  merely  appearances 
as  perceived,  but  things  as  understood.  And  much  further 
still ;  I  may  say  that  like  substances  have  like  qualities ;  and 
that  like  causes  produce  like  effects ;  and  may  then  classify 
nature  through  all  her  genera,  species  and  varieties;  and 
also  by  an  induction  of  similar  facts  conspiring  to  one  end, 
may  deduce  general  laws,  and  thus  extend  my  conclusions 


36  IXTRODUCTION. 

QOt  only  to  embrace  what  I  have  perceived,  but  all  that  it  is 
possible  should  be  perceived  in  nature. 

Here  is  the  basis  of  Inductive  Science.  I  assume  this 
uniformity  in  tlie  substances  and  causes  of  the  universe, 
and  thus  conceive  of  nature  as  bound  in  harmony  by  uni- 
versal laws,  and  have  then  no  difficulty  in  concluding  from 
what  is,  to  what  will  be ;  and  from  what  I  have  perceived, 
to  what  percej)tion  could  any  where  give  in  any  experi- 
ence. I  may  take  some  hypothesis,  and  using  this  for  the 
time  as  if  it  were  the  true  law  of  nature,  I  go  out  to  exam- 
ine and  question  nature  through  all  her  Avorks.  If  I  find 
her  answers  quite  contradictory  to  my  hypothesis,  I  throw 
it  away  as  worthless  and  false;  but  if  I  find  her  answers  in 
conformity  with  my  hypothesis,  it  is  hypothesis  no  longer, 
but  a  veritable  law  of  nature,  by  which  she  is  henceforth  to 
be  interpreted  through  all  her  secret  chambers.  I  may, 
again,  be  observing  the  casual  facts  of  nature  as  they  arise 
promiscuously  around  me,  and  with  the  conviction  that 
there  is  some  law  of  order  though  wholly  as  yet  undiscov- 
ered, there  may  from  some  conspiring  incidents  perhaps,  a 
thought  sudden  as  inspiration  flash  upon  my  mind,  in  which 
the  whole  complexity  of  facts  is  put  at  once  in  clear  and 
systematic  unity.  So  Harvey,  amid  the  promiscuous  facts 
of  anatomical  dissection,  notices  the  valves  which  open  and 
close  within  the  diiferent  chambers  of  the  heart,  and  as  the 
concurring  facts  appear,  that  these  valves  are  so  an-anged 
that  they  may  admit  the  blood  coming  from  the  veins,  and 
then  with  every  pulsation  send  it  through  the  lungs  and 
onward  to  the  arteries;  instantaneously,  the  fact  of  the 
circulation  of  the  blood  in  the  animal  system,  and  the  law 
for  it,  are  clearly  apprehended.     So,  also,  the  falling  apple 


USES  OF  EATIOXAL  PSYCHOLOGY.      3( 

might,  as  is  sometimes  said  it  did,  suggest  to  Xewtoi-.'s 
wakeful  thought  the  universal  action  of  gravitation.  That 
force  of  attraction  which  brought  the  apple  to  the  earth, 
manifestly  reaches  much  higher  than  to  the  bough  from 
which  it  fell ;  why  not  then  to  the  height  of  the  aii*,  and 
hold  to  the  earth  its  surrounding  atmosphere  ?  Wliy  not 
to  the  moon,  and  control  her  changes  ?  Yea,  why  not  act 
from  the  sun  through  all  the  system,  and  hold  each  planet 
in  its  orbit  ?  A  careful  induction  confirms  the  supposition, 
and  determines  the  ratio  of  the  force,  and  at  once  the  law 
of  gravitation  is  assumed  to  pervade  the  universe.  Tlie 
revolutions  of  the  furthest  planet  and  the  wandering  of  the 
most  eccentric  comet  are  subjected  to  its  control. 

But  here,  the  grand  inquiry  essential  for  all  knowledge, 
both  in  the  particular  things  of  experience  and  the  general 
judgments  of  induction,  is  to  be  made  and  answered. 
How  shall  these  notions  of  substance  and  cause  be  verified? 
It  is  not  sufticient  that  the  perception  lias  been  plain,  nor 
that  we  have  been  careful  to  secure  a  broad  induction  of 
facts  before  we  have  defined  the  particular  thing,  or 
deduced  the  general  law.  Such  considerations  are  impor- 
tant merely  in  reference  to  the  modus  operandi.,  and  the 
determination  of  the  correctness  of  the  process.  We  need 
to  go  back  of  the  process,  and  examine  the  conditioning 
principle.  How  do  we  attain  the  validity  of  substance  and 
cause  ?  How  do  we  determine  their  uniformity  ?  By 
what  riglit  do  we  assume  that  nature  has  universal  laws  ? 
That  in  a  large  induction  of  facts  such  an  order  has  been 
found,  will  not  be  ground  sufiicient  to  conclude,  therefore, 
tliis  order  is  necessary  and  universal — experience  has  been 
thus  liitherto,  therefore  it  must  be  Such  evermore.     Exp(;ri. 


38  INTRODUCTION. 

ence  itself  is  based  upon  the  connections  of  substances  and 
oauses,  inasmuch  as  without  them,  all  perception  is  only  of 
the  isolated  and  fleeting  qualities  and  events  with  nothing 
to  connect  such  in  a  unity  of  nature ;  and  here  we  have  not 
only  assumed  them  for  connecting  qualities  into  things,  but 
also  have  assumed  their  uniformity  for  connecting  things  in 
a  general  law  of  nature.  Have  we,  then,  a  firm  ground  on 
which  to  stand,  when  we  thus  attempt  to  go  out  beyond 
the  province  of  the  sense  ?  The  grand  question  is,  how 
come  we  by  the  notions  of  substances  and  causes  ?  and 
especiall}',  how  come  we  by  their  perpetual  order  of  connec- 
tion ?  The  results  of  reflection  ;  the  truth  of  experience ; 
the  validity  of  all  thinking  in  judgments ;  and  the  entire 
superstructure  of  inductive  science ;  all  rest  entirel}^  upon 
the  answer  which  may  be  given  to  such  a  compreliensive 
inquiry.  If  we  can  find  a  firm  foundation  on  which  to  rest 
an  aflirmative  in  this  matter,  then  is  a  science  of  experience 
and  of  nature  possible ;  if  not,  the  most  that  is  within  our 
reach  is  probability  and  belief,  and  the  whole  region  of 
Natural  Philosophy  is  open  to  the  skeptic. 

But  from  the  philosophy  of  sensation,  according  to  the 
system  of  Locke,  no  such  foundation  can  be  attained.  Sen- 
sation is  the  medium  for  attaining  qualities  ;  and  by  com- 
paring, abstracting,  or  combining  these,  we  may  attain  sucli 
predicates  as  greater  and  less,  even  and  odd,  likeness  and 
unlikeness,  etc.,  in  which  the  subject  must  always  be  the 
quality  according  to  its  modifications ;  but  certainly,  no 
such  modification  of  the  quality  can  attain  to  a  subject  for  it, 
and  put  the  quality  in  a  judgment  as  the  predicate  of  such 
subject.  The  substance  and  cause  are  not  at  all  given  iu 
Ihe  sensation,  and  can  not  possibly  come  within  tlie  light  of 


USES     OF    RATIOXAL      PSYCHOLOGY.  89 

ooiisciousness ;  and  it  would  be  wholly  an  illusion  to  sup- 
pose that  because  in  our  thinking  we  have  the  notions  of 
substance  and  cause  vntli  the  qualities  perceived  by  sense, 
therefore  they  have  been  given  in  the  qualities  as  perceived, 
and  taken  by  an  abstraction  out  of  them.  They  are  no 
modifications  of,  nor  abstractions  from,  the  qualities  and 
events  as  perceived  through  sensation ;  but  are  -themselves 
the  conditional  grounds  for  all  qualities  and  sources  for 
all  events,  and  are  wholly  out  of  and  beyond  all  that 
can  be  made  to  appear  in  our  consciousness.  And  yet, 
taking  this  illusion  as  a  reality,  and  assuming  thence  that 
substances  and  causes  are  given  in  sensation  and  taken  by 
abstraction  from  it,  this  philosophy  is  forced  to  convict 
itself  of  the  further  absurdity,  that  what  is  given  in  sensa- 
tion may  be  taken  as  a  universal  law  reaching  beyond  what 
has  been  perceived,  and  determining  how  that  must  be 
which  has  not  been  perceived ;  inasmuch  as  it  assumes  a 
universal  uniformity  of  their  qualities  and  eifects,  in  the 
Uke  substances  and  causes. 

.  Hume,  resting  upon  the  basis  of  the  philosophy  of  sen- 
sation, saw  this  inconsequence  very  clearly,  and  established 
a  skepticism  thereon  utterly  impregnable  to  any  attacks 
from  this  philosophy.  All  that  can  be  known  is  given  in 
sensation  ;  and  this  is  solely  "  hnpressions,"  or  the  less  dis- 
tinct "  ideas,"  which  are  the  copies  of  the  impressions  in 
reflection.  These  "  impressions,"  which  include  all  our 
primary  sensations,  and  in  wliich  we  have  all  the  qualities 
of  an  outer  Avorld  and  all  the  exercises  of  the  mental 
world,  may  follow  consecutively,  and  in  these  sequences 
we  may  determine  an  antecedent  and  consequent,  but  the 
mere   sequence  is  all  that  is  given.     No  reflection  upon 


ft-0  INTR0l3gCTI0N. 

tLe  sequence  can  attain  to  any  causal  7iexus  which  nece^ 
sitates  this  order  of  antecedents  and  consequents.  Such 
sequences  are  and  have  been  together,  but  in  this  there 
is  no  possible  ground  for  the  conclusion  that  they  %olll 
he^  much  less  that  they  must  he  together  hereafter.  This 
efficiency,  as  necessary  connection,  is  not  in  the  "  impres- 
sion" as  attained  in  sensation,  and  hence  no  reflection 
can  attain  to  causation  as  the  "idea"  or  copy  thereof. 

This  most  acute  of  all  skeptics  both  saw  and  admitted 
the  fact,  that  the  human  mind  in  some  way  attained 
the  seeming  conviction  that  this  connection  was  a  neces- 
sary one ;  and  yet,  as  manifestly  such  could  not  be 
given  in  sensation,  and  therefore  could  not  be  knowl- 
edge, he  quite  ingeniously  and  as  philosoj^hically  as  the 
system  of  sensation  will  admit,  attempts  to  account  for 
such  conviction.  It  is  solely  the  result  of  habit,  from  the 
frequent  repetition  of  the  impression  of  the  sequences. 
We  become  accustomed  to  such  an  order  of  sequences, 
and  the  repetition  at  length  makes  so  vivid  an  im- 
pression that  it  becomes  a  settled  "beUef"  that  it  is 
necessary  and  universal.  But  the  philosopher  who  has 
investigated  the  grounds  of  this  belief,  plainly  sees  that 
it  is  wholly  destitute  of  all  validity.  It  is  a  mere  per- 
suasion induced  by  habit  only,  and  from  the  very  sources 
of  all  knowledge  in  sensation  tliis  must  be  utterly  excluded. 
Skepticism  may  here  take  up  its  position  unmolested  at 
the  very  basis  of  all  reasoning  from  efiect  to  cause,  and 
in  the  very  foundations  of  the  Inductive  Philosophy.  It 
is  not  possible  that  we  should  know  nature  to  have  any 
laws  in  her  successions;  we  can  at  the  most  have  only 
persuasion   and  behef,  and   the  philospher   sees  that  this 


USES  OF  RATIONAL  PSYCHOLOGY.      43 

b  all  induced  solely  by  a  mere  repetition  of  a  particular 
order  of  sequences. 

Precisely  the  same  philosophizing  in  reference  to  sub- 
stances induces  the  skepticism  of  any  permanency  in  the 
being,  as  above  of  any  necessity  in  the  order  of  events. 
The  substance  is  as  impossible  to  be  given  in  sensation 
as  is  tlie  cause.  We  have  such  qualities  grouped  together, 
and  it  may  in  the  same  way  be  explained  that  inasmuch 
as  we  have  so  often  seen  them  together,  we  come  at  length 
to  the  conviction  that  they  are  necessarily  together,  and 
that  there  is  some  common  permanent  substance  in  which 
they  inhere.  The  philosopher  knows  that  there  are  only 
the  qualities  of  redness,  fragrance,  softness,  etc.,  together 
in  the  sensation,  and  that  the  substance  which  we  call 
a  rose  is  nothing  but  thp  grouping  of  the  mere  qualities 
in  the  sense.  These  qualities  of  matter  and  the  exercises 
of  mind,  as  given  in  perception,  are  perpetually  arising 
and  departing  in  the  sense,  and  have  no  other  ground 
of  connection  than  "  a  divine  constitution."  The  qualities 
appear,  perpetuated  in  certain  groups ;  and  the  exercises 
appear,  prolonged  through  certain  series ;  but  sense  can 
give  no  permanent  substratum,  and  all  knowledge  that 
there  is  a  permanent  body,  or  a  perduring  mind,  is  aUke 
impossible. 

The  demonstration  which  we  may  gain  from  the 
psychology  of  the  Sense  goes,  thus,  but  a  little  way  in 
eifectually  overthrowing  the  skepticism  of  either  Sensation- 
alism or  Materialism,  for  while  it  proves  that  perception 
gives  real  phenomena,  it  leaves  the  whole  question  in  doubt 
whether  the  mental  exercises  have  any  abiding  source,  or 
the  material  qualities  any  permanent  substance.    There  may 


42  INTRODUCTION. 

bo  veritable  organic  sensations,  but  that  can  determine 
notliing  about  an  outward  world  of  material  substances  as 
object  beyond  plienomena. 

But  a  more  incorrigible  skepticism  still  results  from  this 
tlieory  when  comprehensively  examined  and  intrepidly 
prosecuted  to  its  legitimate  conclusions.  It  is  the  testi- 
mony in  the  convictions  of  universal  consciousness  that 
we  perceive  immediately  the  external  objects  themselves. 
Every  man  is  convinced  that  it  is  the  outer  object,  and  not 
some  representative  of  it,  which  he  perceives.  The  knowl- 
edge that  the  object  is  out  of  myself,  and  other  than  myself, 
and  thus  a  reality  not  subjective  merely,  is  the  testimony  of 
common  sense  every  where.  All  minds,  that  of  philoso- 
phers as  well  as  common  people,  are  shut  up  to  the  testi- 
mony of  consciousness  for  a  direct  and  immediate  percep- 
tion of  the  outward  object.  The  skeptic  himself  admits, 
yea,  insists  upon  this,  and  founds  upon  it  the  necessary  con- 
clusions of  his  skepticism,  rendered  the  more  invincible 
thereby  from  the  contradiction  which  follows. 

For  when  the  unexamined  convictions  of  consciousness, 
as  direct  for  the  immediate  perception  of  an  outer  world, 
are  brought  to  the  test  of  philosophical  investigation  as 
above,  the  demonstration  comes  out  full,  sound,  and  clear, 
that  all  such  immediate  knowledge  is  impossible.  The  very 
sensation  through  which  the  knowledge  is  given  is  wholly 
mental,  and  at  the  most  can  be  determined  as  only  represen- 
tative of  the  object,  and  not  that  it  is  that  object  itself  It 
is  not  possible  to  affirm  beyond  the  immediateness  of  the 
organic  sensation ;  and  all  that  can  directly  be  knoAvn  is, 
that  the  mind  has  such  sensations,  and  this  it  may  deem  to 
be  a  percej^tion  of  an  outward  object,  but  the  reason  attains 


USES     OF    RATIONAL    PSYCHOLOGY.  43 

the  irrefragable  conclusion  that  the  sensation  only,  and  not 
the  object  as  external,  can  be  immediately  in  the  conscious- 
ness. A  demonstration  of  reason,  thus,  concludes  directly 
against  the  testimony  of  universal  consciousness.  And 
now,  where  are  we  as  intelli«;ent  beino*s  ?  Consciousness 
contradicts  reason  ;  the  reason  belies  consciousness.  They 
arc  each  independent  sources  of  human  knowledge ;  mihes- 
itating  conviction  must  follow  a  clear  decision  of  either ; 
and  yet  here  they  openly  and  flatly  contradict  each  other. 
The  nature  of  man  as  intelligent,  stands  out  a  self-contra- 
diction. From  the  very  light  Avhich  is  within  us,  Ave  are 
made  to  conclude  that  light  itself  to  be  darkness,  and  thus 
all  ground  for  knowledge  in  any  way  is  self-annihilated. 
The  truth  of  our  intellectual  nature  is  itself  fdsehood,  and 
there  remains  nothing  other  than  to  doubt  universally. 
This  is  the  dreadful,  but  from  the  philosophy  of  representa- 
tion in  sensation,  the  unavoidable  conclusion  of  David 
Hume ;  and  here  we  come  out  to  a  necessary  Unwersal 
Skepticism. 

Reid,  more  especially  to  counteract  the  last,  but  equally 
as  defensive  against  all  the  above  forms  of  skepticism,  intro. 
duces  here  his  theory  based  on  the  assumptions  of  common 
sense.  Rejecting  all  notion  of  any  representation  in  percep- 
tion, and  imputing  all  such  conclusions  to  the  wandering 
and  delusive  speculations  of  philosophy,  he  takes  the  uni- 
versal decision  of  common  consciousness  on  this  subject  to 
be  true — that  we  immediately  know  the  outer  material 
world  in  the  perceptions  of  sensation ;  and  forestalls  all  con- 
tradiction, by  denying  all  validity  to  any  speculations  whict 
attempt  to  reach  back  beyond  such  decisions  of  universal 
consciousness.     Wiser  than  all  philosophy ;  higher  than  aU 


44  INTEODUCTION. 

Bpeculations  of  tlie  reason;  further  back  than  any  demon- 
strations can  be  allowed  as  vaUd ;  this  decision  of  common 
sense  is  the  first  thing  given,  the  ultimate  truth  in  which  all 
philosopliy  must  begin,  and  on  Avhich  all  demonstration 
must  be  dependent,  and  which  is  never  to  be  disputed. 
He  thus  saves  himself  from  all  skepticism  as  above,  in  any 
of  its  forms,  by  denying  their  fundamental  assum2)tion  of  a 
mediate  perception,  and  assuming  that  the  human  intellect 
was  so  made  as  to  know  the  outer  world  immediately. 

Here,  then,  are  two  counter-assumptions  standing  one 
over  against  the  other,  nor  can  one  demolish  or  be  demol- 
ished by  the  other.  One  assumes  that  sensation  can  be 
none  other  than  a  representative  of  the  object  in  perce^otion; 
the  other  assumes  that  sensation  gives  the  outer  object 
immediately;  and  here  they  both  stand  on  their  ultimate 
positions.  Neither  can  attempt  to  go  back  of  their 
assumed  ultimate  truths,  neither  will  admit  that  the  assump- 
tions of  the  other  are  clear  in  their  own  light  and  self- 
affirmed  ;  and  thus  neither  may  fortify  his  own  j^osition  nor 
assail  the  opposite,  and  each  can  stand  upon  his  own 
ground  and  defy  all  the  logical  and  metaphysical  artillery  of 
his  antagonist. 

And  now,  surely  nothing  can  avail  here,  that  only 
attempts  to  sharpen  the  senses,  or  exactly  to  apprehend 
appearances.  These  notions  of  substance  and  cause  can 
never  be  made  to  appear.  No  possible  functions  of  the 
sense  can  reach  them.  Unless  we  can  transcend  all  knowl. 
edge  from  sensation,  and  attain  to  these  notions  as  wholly 
new  conceptions  in  reflection,  and  verify  them  in  the  higher 
functions  of  an  understanding  as  having  a  valid  reality  of 
being,  we  can  not  exclude  the  skeptic  from  his  logical  right 


USES    OF    RATIONAL    PSYCHOLOGY.  45 

to  doubt  whetlier  permanent  mind  or  matter  exists,  or 
whether  even  he  must  not  doubt  universally.  This,  then,  is 
a  furtlier  use  to  which  Ave  may,  perhaps,  in  the  end  find  the 
results  of  Rational  Psycliology  to  be  subservient.  If  we 
can  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  understanding  in  its  con- 
ditioning laws  of  operation,  and  determine  to  the  intellect, 
in  its  process  of  thinking  in  judgments,  an  equal  validity  as 
before  in  its  process  of  perception ;  then  may  we  from  such 
results  demonstrate  also  the  validity  of  their  being  for  the 
substances  and  causes  of  the  understanding,  as  before  for 
the  phenomena  of  the  sense.  And  such  verification  of  the 
being  of  substances  and  causes,  and  their  uniformity  as  uni- 
versal laws  in  tlie  connections  of  nature,  will  be  an  annihila- 
tion of  all  skepticism  of  mind  or  matter,  and  do  away  with 
all  apparent  conflict  between  consciousness  and  reason.  And 
most  surely  sucli  a  consummation  is  hopeless,  in  any  other 
manner  than  through  an  a  priori  method  of  investigation. 

III.  A  more  serious  difficulty  than  any  which  we  have  yet 
encountered  remains  still  behind,  and  needs  to  be  obviated. 
Tlie  following  order  of  thought  will  bring  this  difficulty  to 
light,  and  disclose  the  use  which  may  be  made  of  the  results 
in  Rational  Psychology  for  its  removal. 

In  the  circumscription  of  all  knowledge  to  that  which  is 
given  in  sensation  and  the  modifications  which  may  be  made 
thereof  in  reflection,  the  necessary  and  universal  connections 
of  cause  and  effect  are  left  to  rest  wholly  upon  assumption. 
Hume  is  manifestly  consistent  with  the  fundamental  princi- 
ple of  the  philosophy  of  sensation,  in  denying  to  human 
knowledge  any  thing  in  cause  and  effect  beyond  simple 
antecedent  and  consequent.  Xo  science  can  be  based  upon 
the  universal  laws  of  nature,  for  it  is  impossible  from  this 


46  INTRODUCTION. 

philosophy  to  go  any  further  than  probability  when  it  is 
assumed  that  nature  has  any  universal  laws.  Hume  recog- 
nizes the  fact  that  the  human  mind  does,  in  some  way, 
attain  the  conviction  that  the  events  in  nature  have  a  neces- 
sary connection,  and  that  the  order  of  this  connection  is 
uniform  and  invariable.  This  conviction  is  far  from  knowl- 
edge, and  is  at  bottom  only  creduhty,  growing  out  of  the 
frequent  repetition  of  the  sequences  in  our  experience,  and 
therefore  a  belief  from  habit  merely ;  yet  does  it  become 
complete  and  controlling,  and  impossible  to  be  counteracted 
by  any  thing  but  the  most  irrefragable  demonstration. 

Hume's  argument  against  the  possibility  of  proof  for  a 
miracle  as  an  interruption  of  the  order  of  nature,  the  neces- 
sary connection  of  which  has  such  complete  conviction  in 
the  human  mind,  is  really  unanswerable  upon  any  empirical 
grounds.  There  must  ever  be  a  stronger  conviction  against 
the  miracle  than  there  can  be  persuasion  for  it.  The  sup- 
posed interposition  of  a  God  out  of  nature,  who  for  good 
reasons  interrupts  the  order  of  nature,  is  wholly  gratuitous 
on  the  ground  of  this  philosophy,  inasmuch  as  all  argumen- 
tation from  the  connections  of  cause  and  effect  must  be 
wholly  inadequate  to  conclude  upon  the  existence  of  such  a 
being.  The  conviction  that  a  God  is,  can  at  the  most  rise 
no  higher,  and  be  deduced  from  nothing  other  than  the 
conviction  that  nature  is  uniform  in  her  sequences ;  and 
then,  to  assume  a  Deity  whose  existence  might  make  a  mir 
acle  possible  can  surely  have  little  weight  with  the  philoso- 
pher, who  very  distinctly  sees  that  both  the  Deity  and  the 
miracle  must  rest  upon  contradictory  data;  the  existence 
of  the  Deity  upon  an  argument  from  the  invariable  and 
unbroken  order  of  causation,  and  the  miracle  itself  a  fact 


USES     OF    RATIONAL    PSYCHOLOGY.  47 

wiiicli  is  a  direct  subversion  of  this  invariable  order.  Such 
skepticism  in  reference  to  all  pretences  that  miracles  have 
been  wrought  is  utterly  incorrigible,  except  through  some 
other  discipline  than  that  which  may  l-e  administered  by 
any  empirical  philosophy.  The  skei)l!cism  is  legitimate 
trom  the  premises ;  the  sophistry  l)as  been  on  the  side  of 
euch  as  have  kept  the  philosophy  and  yet  attempted  to 
answer  the  skeptic. 

But  this  skepticism  in  regard  to  miracles,  and  to  the 
being  of  a  God  who  might  work  miracles,  sustained  by 
the  controlling  conviction  that  the  order  of  nature  is 
uniform,  and  yet  the  conviction  so  controlhng  demon- 
strably only  a  credulous  illusion,  becomes  a  demonstrated 
pantheism  or  a  demonstrated  atheism,  in  several  processes 
of  argumentation  from  the  partial  premises  of  different 
philosophies.  The  philosophy  of  sensation  has  ever  tended 
directly  on  towards  universal  materialism,  and  ultimately 
through  fatalism  to  blank  atheism.  With  Locke,  there  was 
the  disthict  and  clear  admission,  that  while  sensation  was 
passive  in  the  reception  of  objects  from  without,  yet  was 
there  an  active  principle  for  reflection  within ;  and  that 
these  active  faculties  constructed  a  multitude  of  complex 
and  abstract  ideas  out  of  the  materials  fm-nished  by  the 
senses.  And  yet,  inasmuch  as  reflection  could  have  nothing 
to  do  beyond  merely  elaborating  that  which  was  given  in 
the  senses,  it  must  necessarily  have  confined  its  whole  Avork 
to  that  which  was  wholly  within  the  real  forms  of  space 
and  time.  Its  tendency  to  Materialism  and  Fatalism  may 
be  correctly  traced  in  England  through  Hartley,  Priestley, 
Dar^\dn,  and  others.  But  in  France,  the  more  marked  issue 
appears.     Condillac  so  modified  reflection  as  to  make  it  the 


43  I  N  T  E  O  1>  U  C  T  I  O  N  . 

mere  self-consciousness  of  the  feeling  given  m  sensation ; 
and  then  shows  that  every  faculty — attention,  memory, 
comparison,  judgment,  and  even  the  will  and  all  our 
emotions — may  be  accounted  for  as  modified  and  "  trans- 
formed sensations."  The  passage  from  this  was  easy  and 
sure  to  a  complete  material  mechanism  in  all  the  phenomena 
of  our  inner  being,  until  it  attained  its  compound  of  Materi- 
alism, Fatalism,  and  Atheism  in  the  conclusions  of  d'Hol- 
bach,  D'Alembert,  and  the  French  Encyclopedia,  where 
man  appears  as  only  a  combination  of  material  organiza- 
tions ;  his  intellectual  being  the  mere  development  of  neces- 
sitated sensations ;  his  morality  the  impulse  of  self-gratifi- 
cation ;  his  immortality  going  out  in  the  dissolution  of  his 
bodily  organism ;  and  his  God  the  mere  personification  of 
nature  in  her  blind  operations,  which  a  diseased  fancy  and  a 
superstitious  fear  had  elevated  to  universal  dominion. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  philosophy  of  rationalism  has 
tended  towards  absolute  Idealism,  and  ultimately  to  Ideal 
Pantheism  in  the  opposite  direction.  With  Jvant,  in  his 
speculative  philosophy,  there  is  reality  given  in  sensation, 
and  here  is  truly  all  the  material  of  knowledge ;  b*ut  this 
can  come  into  our  cognition  in  no  other  manner  than 
according  to  \hQ  formal  conditions  of  our  subjective  being. 
All,  therefore,  that  Ave  can  know  is  the  phenomenal  only, 
and  as  these  phenomena  are  connected  and  generalized  into 
a  Soul,  a  Universe,  and  a  Deity,  they  are  but  the  modifica- 
tions of  the  material  given  in  sense  reflected  through  the 
regulative  forms  of  the  subjective  understanding  and  the 
reason.  AYe  can  not  demonstrate  that  there  is  any  objecv 
tive  being  as  the  correlative  of  our  formal  thought,  nor  cfin 
we    demonstrate   that   there   is   not   such    objective  valid 


USES     OF    RATIO:^AL    PSYCHOLOGY.  49 

reality.  Ontology,  in  reference  to  the  Soul,  Nature,  and 
God,  must  be  left  to  opinion  and  faith,  and  can  never 
become  science.  Phenomena  are,  as  valid  realities ;  but 
what  they  are  in  themselves,  and  only  as  our  formal  facul- 
ties represent  them  in  our  own  subjective  apprehension,  no 
pliilosophy  can  possibly  determine. 

The  way  was  thus  open  for  Fichte  to  deny  the  reality 
which  had  been  assumed  here  for  the  phenomenal,  and  to 
show  that  the  phenomenal  was  as  truly  a  reflection  in  the 
laws  of  our  subjective  being,  as  in  Kant's  philosophy  had 
been  proved  for  the  Soul,  Nature,  and  the  Deity.  Thus, 
instead  of  admitting  with  Kant,  the  being  of  our  formal 
subjective  intellect  and  the  reality  of  the  objective  phenom- 
enal matter,  Fichte  contends  that  the  last  is  mere  opinion 
and  can  not  be  demonstrated  science,  and  that  thus  only 
our  formal  subjective  being  is  that  with  which  we  must 
begin,  and  on  which  all  philosophy  must  rest.  And  now, 
by  the  mere  process  of  thought,  the  way  is  to  be  shown 
from  this  subjective  being  alone,  out  to  all  our  ideas  of  the 
imiversal  and  the  absolute.  The  subjective,  as  self  or  Ego, 
by  thinking,  attains  to  that  which  limits  itself  by  the  laws 
of  its  own  being,  and  wholly  prevents  the  action  from  going 
out  uninterruptedly  and  losing  itself  in  the  infinite ;  and 
such  necessary  limitations  in  our  activity  we  take  cognizance 
of,  objectify  in  our  consciousness,  and  deem  them  to  be  the 
^phenomena  of  an  outer  world.  Another  step  is  then 
taken,  by  recalling  our  activity  from  these  limitations  in 
our  thinking  which  we  have  made  to  be  outward  phenom- 
ena, and  thus  in  reflection  we  come  to  apprehend  our  own 
activity  and  attain  the  contents  of  our  consciousness,  and 
here  determine  that  the  mind  itself  is  the  whole  sphere  of 

3 


50  INTRODUCTION. 

Its  operations,  and  that  its  activity  can  do  no  more  than  to 
objectify  its  own  limitation  in  its  own  laws,  and  then  come 
back  and  find  itself  as  the  subject  of  its  own  acts  and  the 
object  of  its  own  consciousness.  All  possible  theoretic 
or  speculative  knowledge  is  thus  wholly  subjective,  and 
embraced  within  the  sphere  of  the  Ego  only. 

Schelling  transcends  the  subject  and  the  object  in 
Fichte's  philosophy,  and  assumes  an  absolute  Ego  as  the  pri- 
mal self-existent  being.  Out  of  this,  by  one  act  of  a  di- 
remptive  or  disparting  movement,  both  the  subject  and 
object  are  simultaneously  given.  This  absolute  being  is 
quite  back  of  all  that  can  appear  in  consciousness,  and  can 
be  known  only  in  a  purely  "intellectual  intuition,"  but 
which  in  a  determined  logical  movement  develops  itself  into 
the  unconscious  world  of  nature  j  the  conscious  world  of 
mind ;  and  finally,  to  the  knowledge  that  all  of  nature  and 
humanity  are  but  the  products  of  this  logical  movement, 
and  which  self-knowledge  of  the  all-embracing  movement 
gives  the  developed  Deity. 

As  the  acorn  has  within  it  potentially  the  mature  oak,  or 
as  the  ^^^  is  potentially  the  complete  fowl,  so  it  may  be 
illustrated  has  Schelling's  absolute  being  potentially  within 
it  the  world  of  nature,  of  humanity,  and  of  a  self-conscious, 
all-embracing  Deity.  The  living  force  in  the  acorn,  or  the 
Q^'g^  is  not  the  oak  or  the  fowl,  but  it  may  be  contemplated 
as  passhig  out  in  a  determined  developing  movement,  and 
when  in  utter  unconsciousness,  the  successive  statements  in 
the  process  are  the  growth  of  nature ;  so  far  as  it  may  be 
conceived  that  it  has  come  to  feel  its  own  movement,  it  has 
the  sentient  life  of  the  animal ;  and  when  this  self-feeling  has 
come  through  reflection  to  a  discriminating  self-conscious- 


USES  OF  RATIONAL  PSYCHOLOGY.    51 

ness,  the  development  has  reached  to  the  stating  of  human- 
ity. When  this  further  comes  to  know  itself  as  the  all- 
embracing  source  of  nature  and  humanity,  and  that  it  iden- 
tifies in  itself  all  of  the  objective  and  subjective  being  in  the 
universe,  the  true  Godhead  is  evolved  and  the  realized 
Deity  is  therein  attained. 

But  even  this  identification  of  the  subjective  and  the 
objective  in  the  absolute  is  still  so  far  thoroughly  objective, 
in  that  the  developing  process  is  contemplated  as  taking 
place  before  us ;  we  are  looking  on  this  living  movement, 
and  the  whole  result  in  nature,  humanity,  and  evolved  deity 
stands  out  face  to  face  with  us ;  and  thus  with  both  Fichte 
and  Schelling  there  is  an  unresolved  dualism.  The  Ego 
develops  itself  before  a  spectator  vdio  is  wholly  outside  of 
the  process  and  altogether  inexplicable  by  the  philosophy. 
Whence  comes,  and  where  goes,  and  who  is  this  observer 
that  looks  on  both  subject  and  object  and  the  living  process 
evolving  them  ? 

Here  Hegel  interposes  his  method  and  we  have  a  modifi- 
cation of  the  critical  philosophy  which  completely  exhausts 
all  analysis  and  abstraction  and  consummates  its  entire  mis- 
sion. This  living  process  is  taken  as  a  thinking  movement 
and  assumed  to  be  a  pure  logical  act  exclusive  of  any  sub- 
sisting actor,  and  then  instead  of  standing  outside  and  look- 
ing on,  Ave  are  made  to  stand  in  and  identify  ourselves  with 
the  movement.  There  is  no  outside  spectator,  but  solely  an 
inner  witness ;  and  this  inner  eye  does  not  look  forward  and 
forecast,  but  solely  opens  in  consciousness  to  the  present 
position.  What  is  successively  given  is  retained,  and  the 
last  is  so  combined  or  "  suppressed"  in  the  former,  that  the 
successive  statements  are  posited  in  perpetually  riper  and 


52  INTEODUCTION. 

niaturer  being  as  the  development  progresses.  This  whole 
dialectical  process  is  most  profomidly  and  elaborately  expo- 
sed, and  the  World,  Man,  and  God  are  successively  given  to 
recognition  as  the  seeing  eye  opens  upon  the  different  stages 
of  the  logical  movement. 

But  when  we  make  this  philosophy  to  awake  from  its 
dream  of  development,  and  ascertain  its  results,  it  must  per- 
force find  that  it  has  ensphered  all  things  m  a  transcen- 
dental pantheism.  Thinking  and  being  are  the  same.  The 
process  of  creating  is  the  order  of  logical  thought.  Every 
object  is  an  ideal  product,  and  nature  and  humanity  are 
but  the  development  of  the  one  Uving  process  of  think- 
ing, the  aggregate  and  consummation  of  which  becomes 
the  completed  Deity. 

A  philosophy  exclusively  based  upon  either  the  objective 
or  the  subjective  is  necessarily  partial  in  its  very  beginning, 
and  must  eventuate  when  carried  to  its  legitimate  issue,  in 
one-sided  and  therefore  erroneous  conclusions.  The  philo- 
sophical speculation  on  either  side  must  follow  some  law  of 
order,  and  if  it  be  the  law  impressed  upon  the  objective  in 
its  development  of  cause  and  effect,  it  must  ultimately 
absorb  all  thino^s  within  the  workins-s  of  a  mechanical  neces- 
sity;  and  if  it  be  the  law  which  directs  the  subjective  devel- 
opment of  thought,  it  must  in  the  end  involve  all  things 
within  the  rigid  conclusions  of  a  logical  fitality.  A  com- 
prehensive survey  of  both,  readily  determines  what  must  be 
the  landing  place  of  each. 

Let  the  objective  be  the  starting  point,  and  the  observed 
facts  in  their  law  of  experience  must  give  direction  to  all 
investigation.  In  following  out  such  investigations,  physi- 
cal science  will  be  greatly  promoted ;  the  laws  of  cause  and 


USES    OF    RATIONAL    rSYCHOLOGY. 

effect  in  astronomy,  chemistry,  pliysiology,  geology,  etc.. 
will  be  followed  out  to  their  furthest  traces  in  human  obser- 
vation ;  and  practical  utility  and  social  expediency  will  hf- 
the  groimd-springs  of  human  action.  But  such  a  philoso- 
phy has  at  length  only  to  open  the  eyes  and  look  around 
from  its  position  to  determine  its  own  interests,  and  it  must 
find  itself  fast  bomid  withhi  tlie  chain  of  a  fixed  causation, 
^nd  shut  up  ^\dthin  the  prison  of  nature  hopeless  of  all 
deliverance.  Without  some  salient  point  in  nature,  from 
wliich,  saltu  mortall,  we  may  fairly  project  our  phik-  iophy 
beyond  nature,  then  must  our  whole  being  perforce  f  ontent 
itself  to  abide  within  nature,  and  take  the  destiny  of 'iature; 
and  the  man  must  recognize  himself  and  all  that  o  about 
him,  as  separate  links  in  the  same  indefinite  chain  oji  comin<> 
and  departing  events,  each  in  its  destined  place  fu'/illing  it^^ 
own  mission,  and  all  constituting  a  progressive  3eries  of 
necessitated  successions  which  is-  both  unalterable  and  inter 
minable.  We  can  know  nothing  beyond  nature,  we  must 
conclude  that  there  is  nothing  beyond  nature  to  be  known 
The  positivism  of  Auguste  Comte  is  the  natural  and  neces 
sary  result. 

And  here,  let  it  be  most  gravely  inquired,  if  there  be  not 
some  long-standing  and  far-fiimed  theories  in  metaphysics 
among  us,  which  must  infallibly  terminate  in  the  above  con- 
clusions, whenever  they  shall  be  resolutely  pushed  onward 
to  their  consequences.  A  philosophy  which  mcludes  in  the 
same  category  of  causation  the  changes  in  matter  and  the 
originations  in  mind,  though  it  may  use  the  qualifpng  terms 
of  a  natwal  and  moral  necessity,  but  which  still  do  not 
K^ark  any  discrimination  in  the  connections  but  only  in  the 
things  connected,  must.,  unavoidably  find  itself  within  the 


O-t  INTKODUCTIOX. 

charmed  circle  out  of  which  there  can  be  no  escaping.  It  is 
not  possible  that  such  a  theory  can  vindicate  for  the  human 
soul  in  its  iramortahtv,  nor  for  the  Deity  in  his  eternity,  the 
possession  of  any  attributes  which  may  rise  above,  or  reach 
beyond,  the  interminable  conditions  in  the  linked  series  of  a 
fixed  causation.  An  assumed  God  of  nature  must  be  but 
nature  still,  evermore  stretching  the  chain  onward. 

Let,  on  the  other  hand,  the  subjective  be  the  starting- 
point,  and  the  logical  order  of  thinking  in  judgments  must 
be  the  law  for  our  whole  process  of  philosophizing.  And 
here,  doubtless,  great  progress  will  be  made  in  intellectual 
science ;  and  the  most  abstract  thoughts,  and  fine-spun  dis- 
tinctions, and  broadest  generalizations,  and  most  subtle 
analyses,  will  be  distinctly  seized  by  the  human  understand- 
ing, and  carried  out  to  the  most  profound  demonstrations. 
But  such  a  philosophy,  again,  has  only  to  lift  its  eyes  from 
its  minute  and  critical  examination  of  the  goings-on  of  sub- 
jective thought  within,  and  look  out  upon  the  bearings  of 
its  course,  and  it  must  find  itself  plunging  into  an  abyss  of 
abstractions  empty,  and  bottomless  ;  from  which  there  is  no 
escape  until  itself,  the  soul,  nature,  and  God  are  all  lost 
together  in  an  Idealism  which  ultimately  vanishes  in  nihility. 
So  long  as  anything  remains,  the  laws  of  thought  must  be 
there,  and  they  are  as  rigid  in  their  consecutive  develop- 
ments as  the  fixed  ongoings  in  the  successions  of  nature, 
and  must  bind  the  soul  and  the  Deity  within  the  same  logical 
necessities.  But  even  these  exist  only  fi-om  sufferance,  and 
nmst  be  as  truly  ideal  as  the  thoughts  induced  by  them ; 
and  thus  both  law  and  logical  process  of  thought,  together 
with  aU  of  nature  and  the  absolute  to  which  they  had 


USES  OF  RATIONAL  PSYCHOLOGY.      55 

attaiued,  await  only  that  sweeping  abstraction  which  abol- 
ishes the  whole  ideal  vision  forever. 

There  are  two  other  methods  taken  in  dealing  witli  this 
question  of  finding  an  Absolute  Deity,  neither  of  which  can 
bring  any  reUef  against  speculative  skepticism,  and  yet  botti 
are  frequently  used  with  much  confidence  ;  these  are  Eclec- 
ticism and  Mysticism. 

Eclecticism  anticipates  that  there  will  be  found  truth 
more  or  less  in  all  methods  of  philosophizing,  though  often- 
times partial,  obscured,  and  distorted,  and  it  essays  to  sift 
this  truth  from  the  error,  and  with  this  pure  residuum  of  all 
systems  build  up  the  only  and  altogether  true.  xVnd  now, 
undoubtedly  it  may  so  far  be  yielded  to  such  a  theory  as  to 
admit  that  few  philosophical  systems  can  be  wholly  wrong ; 
that  truth  from  any  one  must  be  consistent  with  the  truths 
of  all  others  ;  and  that  the  only  and  altogether  true  system 
of  philosophy  must  be  competent  to  find  a  place  within  its 
comprehension  for  all  philosophical  truth  ;  and  also,  that  if 
all  the  truths  of  all  philosophical  systems  were  discriminated 
from  the  errors  of  all,  and  this  in  combination  with  all  other 
truth  was  harmoniously  bound  up  in  one  system,  it  would 
be  a  true  comprehensive  philosophy. 

But  how  shall  we  go  on  with  this  sifting  process,  an  1 
detect  all  pure  truth  and  take  it  out  from  all  other  systems  ; 
Certainly  this  can  in  no  other  manner  be  done  than  in  fir'  t 
having  already  some  system  of  our  own  and  taking  our  stand 
upon  it,  and  applying  its  law  of  construction  to  comprehend 
all  that  is  true  in  all  others,  and  thereby  vindicate  its  own 
riecht  to  be  and  to  take  that  which  demohshes  others  in 
building  up  itself  It  can  not  be  allowed  that  the  true  sys- 
tem shall  be  some  arbitrary  patch- work  by  selecting  and 


56  INTRODUCTION. 

appropri^iirg  assumed  truths  here  and  there,  but  it  must 
have  its  own  law  of  construction  which  can  of  right  claim 
all  truth,  because  it  can  put  all  in  its  own  place  and  legiti- 
mate its  i^ossession  by  a  universal  and  harmonious  colliga- 
tion. Eclecticism  can  not  thus  beo^in  its  woi'k  of  takino: 
truths  from  other  systems,  except  by  already  possessing  and 
bringing  with  it  its  own  comprehensive  law  to  vindicate  its 
dtle  to  what  it  takes,  and  not  by  arrogantly  jDlundering 
what  it  may  covet. 

This  is  the  professed  theory  of  Cousin,  and  he  holds 
that  in  all  correlative  objects,  the  knowing  of  one  gives  in 
that  the  knowledge  of  the  other.  The  knowledge  of  the 
finite  and  of  the  relative  gives  at  once  the  knowledge  of  the 
infinite  and  the  absolute.  To  know  finite  causes  is  there- 
fore at  the  same  time  to  know  an  infinite  cause,  and  to 
know  relative  causes  is  thereby  to  know  an  absolute  cause ; 
and  the  knowledge  of  the  relative  and  the  absolute  cause, 
gives  also,  at  the  same  time,  the  knowledge  of  the  diff*er- 
ence  between  them.  He  thus  conditions  all  things  upon  an 
absolute  cause,  and  afiirms  that  as  cause  it  must  of  necessity 
go  out  into  effect,  though  he  assumes  that  the  absolute 
cause  is  not  all  exhausted  in  the  effect.  The  universe,  it  is 
afllirmed,  is  as  necessary  to  the  Deity  as  the  Deity  is  to  the 
universe.  The  assumed  absolute  cause  is  made  at  once  a 
conditioned  cause,  and  as  truly  necessitated  to  nature  as  the 
cause  is  to  its  effect  in  nature.  An  inevitable  pantheism  is 
also  involved,  for  nature  is  but  the  absolute  produced  for- 
ward into  its  effect,  and  if  it  does  not  exhaust  the  absolute, 
it  is  yet  so  far  forth  a  portion  of  the  absolute  cause  pro- 
duced onward  into  nature  as  effect.  It  is,  therefore,  aside 
from  its  unphilosophic  assumption  of  the  knowledge  of  the 


USES     OF    RATIONALPSYCIIOLOGY.  57 

absolute  in  the  relative  merely  because  the  absolute  is 
suggested  by  the  relative,  still  as  truly  fatalistic  and  pan- 
theistic as  any  system  which  it  has  been  assumed  to  sup- 
plant. 

3fysticis7n  AvhoUy  despairs  of  any  help  in  reaching  to 
the  supernatural  and  finding  the  being  and  attributes  of 
God  by  any  intellectual  jDrocess.  Suppressing  all  specula- 
tion, the  Mystic  relies  wholly  on  internal  im23ulses  and  mys- 
terious impressions.  From  the  inner  prompting  of  his  own 
immortal  spirit,  he  verily  believes  that  there  is  living  and 
conscious  being  within  the  dark  region  of  the  supernatural, 
but  he  distrusts  all  proffered  help  from  philosopliy  and 
leaves  the  intellect  to  work  out  its  problems  in  physics,  and 
weave  its  syllogisms  in  dialectics,  and  vainly  to  exercise 
itself  in  the  endless  speculations  of  metaphysics.  He  may 
study  nature  in  the  facts  of  experience,  but  he  will  not 
think  nor  reason  any  further.  He  turns  to  some  inward 
illumination,  and  confides  in  some  suddenly  imparted  senti- 
ment or  impulsive  feeling  which  will  convey  to  him  an 
immediate  knowledge  of  the  mysterious  spirit-world.  This 
may  take  on  very  varied  forms  of  working.  It  may  be  the 
philosophical  mysticism  of  Jacobi,  where  all  is  made  to  rest 
upon  an  ultimate  and  absolute  feeling  of  belief,  and  in 
which  this  ultimate  faith-principle  is  taken  up  and  its  work- 
ings attempted  rationally  to  be  accounted  for,  and  all  its 
results  subjected  to  an  exceedingly  elegant,  ingenious,  and 
extended  analysis :  or  it  may  be  the  enthusiastic  impulses  of 
Peter  the  Hermit :  or  the  fanatic  persistence  of  Ignatius 
Loyola ;  or  the  credulous  revealings  of  Fox  s  inner  light ; 
or  the  profound  rhapsodies  of  Jacob  Boehme.  The  imme 
diate  organ  of  knowledge  in  all  is  an  inner  and  inexplicable 

3* 


58  INTRODUCTION. 

feeling  of  faith,  with  which  the  intellect  can  have  little  coin- 
munion,  and  whose  process  of  revealing  is  as  mysterious  as 
the  beings  it  reveals. 

Without  questioning  how  and  whence  the  revelation  is 
to  come,  or  at  all  testing  by  the  judgment  the  inspiration 
when  given,  the  man  turns  himself  reverently  toward  the 
dark  unknown,  and  in  silent  contemplation  waits  with  con- 
fiding expectation  for  the  message  to  be  delivered  or  the 
vision  to  appear.  The  excited  workings  of  his  own  spirit 
transfer  their  products  to  this  dim  region  of  the  supernatu- 
ral and  his  inner  sympathies  and  imaginings  become  to  him 
objective  realities,  and  the  spirit-land  is  made  to  be  the 
scene  of  such  ghostly  communings  as  abound  in  the  credu- 
lous experiences  of  Emmanuel  Swedenborg.  Nor  are  all 
these  illusions  wholly  empty  chimeras.  They  have  their 
actual  being  in  the  inner  hfe  and  spirit  of  the  man  himself, 
and  come  as  a  reflection  from  that  which  has  been  a  true 
possession  in  the  immortal  soul.  As  possessing  any  objec- 
tive significance  and  value  they  are  wholly  meaningless  and 
worthless,  but  subjectively  read  and  interpreted,  they  con- 
tain a  very  important  lesson  for  philosophy  to  study  and 
expound.  But  while  there  may  be  reflections  and  indices 
of  much  that  is  true  in  our  subjective  feeling  and  experi- 
ence, yet  can  we  never  rely  upon  this  inner  working  as  any 
inspiration  or  revelation  from  the  supernatural  world. 
They  have  their  whole  origin  and  characteristic  from  the 
interior  Ufe  of  the  deluded  man,  and  are  to  be  interpreted 
as  wholly  that  which  comes  from  him  and  not  any  thing 
that  comes  to  him.  A  divine  message  through  some  form 
of  supernatural  inspiration  will  never  leave  its  vindication  to 
mere  credulity,  but  will  always  have  such  a  stamp  and  seal 


USES     OF     RATIONAL     PSYCHOLOGY.         69 

npon  It  as  must  cany  to  the  reason  the  full  conviction  of 
Heaven's  authority. 

There  may  also  be  noticed  that  which  has  become  an 
English  form  of  German  TrancendentaUsm,  and  which 
has  its  modifications  in  the  writings  of  distinguished  names 
both  m  Great  Britain  and  America.  "VYithout  going  pro- 
foundly into  the  S23eculations  of  the  leading  German  think- 
ers or  adopting  their  method,  and  indeed  rejecting  their 
complete  subjective  ideahsm,  there  is  a  retaining  of  the 
entire  theory  of  a  development  from  some  supposed  and 
assumed  absolute  source,  and  that  this  development  is 
through  an  interminable  process  according  to  an  internal 
and  determined  law  of  movement.  Nature  is  not  a  medley 
of  shifting  phenomena,  but  an  orderly  unfolding  of  events 
according  to  an  inner  and  fixed  law  of  progress.  Rising 
above  the  philosophy  of  sensation,  and  clearly  aware  of  the 
empty  and  dead  mechanism  in  which  that  philosophy  must 
terminate,  it  admits  of  living  forces  and  laws  in  nature,  and 
strenuously  contends  for  the  authority  and  validity  of  philo- 
sophical investigations  and  demonstrations  in  reference  to 
this  orderly  and  progressive  development.  Xature  is  no 
longer  viewed  merely  in  the  husk  and  dead  shell  of  the  phe- 
nomenal, but  hving  powers  are  apprehended  as  working 
beneath  and  ever  unfolding  new  forms  of  beauty,  and  perpet- 
ually progressing  in  its  perfectibility.  The  laws  of  thought 
and  intelligence  have  their  counterpart  in  the  laws  of  natare 
and  humanity,  and  the  world  of  matter  and  of  mind  move 
on  correlatively  in  parallel  lines,  with  even  step,  and  never- 
ending  progression.  In  all  this  science  finds  order,  har- 
mony, truth,  and  beauty.  Life  and  gladness  abound;  and 
tvhere   disorder   appears,  it  is   only  the  result   of  a  higher 


60  INTRODUCTION. 

order,  for  all  its  evils  and  distress  teach  lessons  of  wisdom 
or  touch  sensibilities  and  sympathies  whose  gushing  emo- 
tions we  could  not  afford  to  have  missed.  Nothins^  on  the 
whole  can  be  wrong ;  the  progressive  march  of  nature  and 
humanity  is  as  straight  and  rapid  as  possible.  But  here  is 
the  terminus  of  all  thought  and  philosophy.  The  living 
force  and  work  in  nature,  the  determined  progress  of 
humanity  in  taste,  and  social  refinement,  and  political  order, 
and  philosophical  truth  ;  these  give  themes  of  never-faihng 
interest ;  but  all  "beyond,  the  supernatural  world,  the  bemg 
of  a  personal  God  and  His  moral  government,  the  future 
immortahty  revealed  and  the  divine  plan  of  preparing  sinful 
men  for  it,  and  His  purposes  of  penal  retribution  in  it ;  these 
are  gratuitous  assumptions,  unphilosophical  and  indemon" 
strable.  Science  can  attain  to  nothing  beyond  the  corrella- 
tive  laws  in  nature  and  humanity,  and  any  absolute  person- 
ality must  be  inconceivable  and  impossible,  and  thus  all 
inspiration  and  miraculous  intervention  is  incredible.  Inspi- 
ration can  only  be  a  fuller  imj^artation  to  some  favored  sage 
of  the  universal  reason,  and  who  thus  becomes  the  Seer  and 
Prophet  of  his  age,  and  whose  oracles  may  live  in  the 
religious  veneration  of  j^osterity  until  the  rising  reason  in 
the  race  has  transcended  their  import,  when  humanity  again 
needs  its  new  Prophet  and  may  expect  in  the  order  of  prog- 
ress its  new  revelations. 

This  Transcendentalism  is  only  partial,  and  its  stand- 
point is  wholly  within  nature.  It  transcends  the  phenom- 
enal of  the  sense  fairly  and  philosophically,  and  such  is  its 
deservedly  great  praise.  But  to  it  the  supernatural  is  utter 
darkness.  Not  the  mere  absence  of  light  but  the  absence 
of  all  b^ing ;  the  darkness  of  entire  negation.     For  it  nature 


USES     OF    RATIONAL    PSYCHOLOGY.  61 

and  humanity  run  on  their  peri^etual  correspondencies,  and 
if  there  be  aught  which  they  do  not  fill  it  must  be  an  utter 
void.  It  is  for  its  adherents  the  part  of  wisdom  to  suppress 
the  aspirations  of  the  free  and  immortal  within  them,  for 
this  can  be  only  the  workings  of  a  delusive  hope  or  an 
instinctive  fear,  and  the  sure  precursor  of  superstition  cr 
fanaticism.  The  rgason  as  an  organ  for  knowing  the  super- 
natural is  discarded,  and  yet  the  philosopher  calls  himself  a 
Rationalist!  He  shuts  liimself  hopelessly  within  nature 
and  humanity,  and  yet  calls  himself  a  Transcendentalist ! 
He  has  so  far  transcended  the  mere  phenomenal  that  he  can 
give  unity  to  nature  and  correspondence  between  nature 
and  humanity,  but  he  recognizes  no  function  for  transcend- 
ing nature  and  comprehending  both  nature  and  humanity  in 
a  personal  Deity.  Humanity  to  him  is  in  and  of  nature, 
and  all  the  correspondencies  between  humanity  and  nature 
are  in  the  necessary  logical  connections  of  the  former  and 
the  physical  connections  of  cause  and  effect  in  the  latter. 
There  is  to  him  no  free  power  of  origination  and  self-direc- 
tion any  where.  Humanity  is  on  its  parallel  progress  with 
nature,  each  with  its  destined  order  of  development  and 
fixed  laws  of  movement.  The  world  without  is  truly  the 
counterpart  of  the  intellectual  world  within,  and  here  the 
philosopher  is  perpetually  finding  analogies,  correlatives, 
and  correspondencies,  and  delighting  himself  with  the  won- 
derful traces  of  harmony  and  beauty  between  them.  But 
that  which  is  truly  free,  personal,  and  immortal  in  the  spirit, 
this  philosophy  wholly  ignores,  and  between  this  and  nature 
there  is  often  the  imperative  for  contrast  and  conflict.  The 
necessities  of  the  natural  and  the  responsibilities  of  the 
spiritual  can  not  be  held  as  analogous  without  perpetual 


C2  INTRODUCTION. 

absurdities  and  contradictions.  The  self-conscious  and  self 
active  can  not  be  made  to  run  parallel  with  the  caused  and 
necessitated,  without  introducing  shocking  deformities  and 
painful  discords. 

And  precisely  in  this  is  the  ready  explanation  of  what 
so  perpetually  appears  in  all  the  writings  of  this  modern 
transcendental  school.  In  its  j^artiality  |jnd  incompleteness, 
it  must  often  give  unequal  representations ;  the  correlation 
in  the  intellectual  subjective  and  the  physical  objective  will 
give  truth,  the  contrast  in  the  free  and  spiritual  subjective 
and  the  material  objective  must  give  absurdity.  Hence  we 
have  at  one  time,  so  much  life,  vigor,  clearness  and  depth 
of  originality,  that  we  stand  admiiing  and  delighted ;  at 
another  time,  the  whole  is  equivocal,  ambiguous,  and  so 
obscurely  enigmatical,  that  one  man  deems  it  the  veracious 
though  mysterious  responses  of  an  oracle,  and  another  the 
ravings  of  a  lunatic ;  again,  we  have  comj^arisons  so  gro- 
tesque and  ludicrous,  that  we  can  not  choose  but  smile  ;  and 
then,  so  profane  and  irreverent  a  blending  of  the  natural 
and  the  spiritual,  the  human  and  the  divine,  that  we  ought 
indignantly  to  frown.  The  human,  which  it  can  know,  is  so 
often  represented  in  the  phraseology  of  the  divine,  which  it 
assumes  not  to  know,  that  the  whole  speech  becomes  utterly 
impertinent,  and  often  shockingly  blasphemous.  The  posi- 
tion is  wholly  within  nature,  and  it  is  denied  that  there  may 
be  any  projection  of  the  intellect  beyond  nature,  and  thus 
if  any  thing  be  said  of  the  supernatural  it  must  refer  to  the 
laws  of  the  natural,  and  if  any  attributes  of  Divinity  are 
mentioned  they  must  apply  to  some  of  the  aggregates  of 
humanity.  And  hence,  that  mixture  of  the  meaning  and 
the  meaningless,  the  expressed  and  the  inexpressible,  which 


USES    OF    EATIONAL    PSYCHOLOGY.  btJ 

BO  abounds  tlirovigh  the  speculations  and  teachings  of  thi". 
philosophy.  Here  and  there  gleams  of  light  so  bright  and 
pure  break  out  from  masses  of  mist  and  clouds,  as  to  seem 
almost  like  flashes  of  inspiration ;  and  then  come  forced 
analogies  so  strange  and  wild,  as  to  seem  rather  the  ravings 
of  madness. 

But  with  all  the  interest  which  this  philosophy  would 
seek  to  inspire  for  the  inner  life  of  nature,  and  the  faith  it 
M'ould  cherish  for  the  progress  of  humanity,  it  still  termir- 
ates  wholly  within  the  conditions  of  those  laws,  which  bind 
the  thinking  in  logical  sequences  and  outward  events  in 
necessitated  successions.  The  Universe,  the  Soul,  and  the 
Deity,  are  all  circumscribed  within  the  iron  chain  of  a  fixed 
order  of  progress.  The  chain,  though  endless,  is  yet  one. 
From  the  first,  if  any  first  can  be,  no  link  is  independent  of 
the  others,  but  one  exists  for  all  and  all  for  each,  and  all 
proper  personality  is  impossible.  The  Deity  is  the  inner 
force  and  law,  which  is  operating  as  logical  thought  in 
humanity  and  as  causation  in  physical  nature ;  and  by  an 
intestine  necessity  works  out  the  perpetual  development, 
orderly,  incessantly,  irresistibly  ;  yet  wdiolly  destitute  alike 
of  feeling,  of  foresight,  and  of  freedom.  Hence  those 
glowing  and  sometimes  truly  sublime  representations  of  the 
deep,  mysterious,  silent,  and  eternal  working  of  this  power 
within  and  around  us.  All  things  working  on,  and  together 
working  out  their  own  destiny ;  and  the  changeless  law 
pervading  the  whole  is  the  God  of  the  whole,  and  there  is 
no  God  beyond  and  above  this. 

And  now,  verily,  it  can  but  little  subserve  the  good 
cause,  to  meet  this  highest  form  of  Infidelity  with  ridicule, 
hard  names,  and  reproachful  epithets.     The  system  is  the 


64  INTRODUCTION. 

product  of  severe  and  earnest  thonglit,  and  has  much  of 
pure  and  high   truth  embraced  within  it.      It   will   never 
permit  itself  to  be  laughed  out  of  countenance,  nor  can  it 
be  beaten  down  by  denunciation.     Nature  has  fixed  con- 
nections and  established   law^s,  and   her  inner  causality  is 
w^orking  out  for  herself  an  orderly  and  progressive  develop- 
ment.    It  is  a  great  attainment  for  any  philosophy  to  have 
followed  up  tlie  road  of  truth  and  science  thus  far,  and  to 
have  settled  the   laws  of   nature's  development  upon  the 
basis   of  a  rational  demonstration.     It  is  the  only  way  in 
which  the  errors  originating  in  the  limited  philosophy  of 
sensation  can  be  met  and  redressed.     But,  while  it  is  to  its 
credit,  that  it  goes  thus  far,  yet  it  is  itself  but  an  incom- 
plete  and   partial   philosophy,    and   terminates   in   greater 
difficulties   and    deeper   errors   than   those    Avhicli    it    has 
removed.     The  evil  is  not  in  Avhat  this  system  embraces, 
but  from  what  it  excludes.     What  we  need  is  a  hardy  and 
complete  philosophy  which  w^ill  not  stop  within  nature's 
Temple  and  w^orship  only  amid  the  products  of  her  agency 
and  under  the  authority  of  her  laws  and  principles.     We 
need   from   within   nature,    whence   our    knowledge   must 
begin,  some  point  for  firm  footing  so  high  that  we  may 
overlook,  and  truly  cast  our  vision  beyond  nature,  and  find 
an  absolute  and  free  Being  w^ho  has  given  existence  to,  and 
who  controls  nature.     The  mind  must  be  disciplined  and 
the  intellectual   vision  purified  and  exercised  until  it  may 
clearly  discern   a  sharp   outline,  discriminating   liberty   in 
personality   from    physical   causation   not   only,   but   from 
instinctive   impulses,    and    constitutional    inclinations,    and 
undirected    spontaneity,   and    unhindered    agency  in    one 
direction.     A  personality  must  be  found,  with  a  capability 


USES     OF    RATIONAL    PSYCHOLOGY.  65 

to  originate  objective  and  substantial  being  from  witliin 
himself;  and  to  put  forth  his  creations  as  other  than,  and 
quite  distinct  from,  his  own  being ;  and  who  both  in  exist- 
ence and  agency  shall  be  wholly  unconditioned  by  any 
higher  causation ;  and  whose  line  of  operation  shall  be 
determined  by  nothing  from  within  his  work,  but  Avholly 
from  an  imperative  out  of  and  independent  of  his  work, 
and  given  altogether  in  his  own  absolute  bemg.  This  is 
essential  to  the  idea  of  a  personal,  underived,  and  inde- 
pendent Deity ;  and  except  as  we  cognize  the  actual  exist- 
ence of  such  an  absolute  person,  we  can  possibly  worship 
none  other  than  an  "  unknown  God." 

It  is  not  sufficient  that  we  leap  to  the  conclusion,  as  is 
mostly  done  in  all  our  popular  treatises  on  Natural  Theol- 
ogy, and.  thus  attain  only  the  assumption  of  the  existence  of 
such  a  Being — because  such  will  very  well  relieve  the  want 
which  we  feel  in  our  speculations  to  find  a  permanent  rest- 
ing place  to  our  regressus  in  the  tracing  up  of  the  series  of 
conditioned  effects  from  conditioning  causes,  and  whence 
also  we  may  begin  to  trace  down  the  flowing  streaui  of 
events  as  independent  of  any  higher  source — inasmuch  as  in 
this  manner  we  can  possibly  attain  to  no  higher  than  an 
hypothetical  Deity.  Our  want  is  satisfied  by  such  an  hypo- 
thesis, and  the  being  of  nature  is  explained  by  such  a  suppo- 
Bition ;  but  that  there  is  actually  such  a  God,  is  in  this  way, 
wholly  supposititious  and  indemonstrable.  The  true  idea  of 
a  God  is  first  to  be  attained,  viz.,  a  being  who  may  originate 
universal  nature  from  himself,  and  not  be  himself  a  compo- 
nent or  an  included  element,  but  who,  though  originating 
nature,  in  his  personality  still  stands  forth  beyond  and  inde- 
pendent of  it,  and  at  his  pleasure  operates  upon  and  withm 


06  IXTRODUCTION. 

it ;  and  then  this  idea  realized  in  this,  that  having  in  an  a 
priori  demonstration  determined  how  it  is  possible  thus  to 
comprehend  nature,  we  should  look  at  nature  and  find  there 
the  correlative  and  thus  the  demonstrative  of  this  idea  in  act- 
ual existence.  The  Being  whom  we  seek  to  know  is  tran- 
scendental in  the  highest  degree.  He  transcends  all  appear- 
ance in  sensation,  inasmucli  as  He  can  never  be  made  a 
coatent  of  the  sense  and  constructed  into  an  object  in  con- 
sciousness. He  also  transcends  all  the  notions  in  substance 
and  cause  in  the  understanding,  inasmuch  as  while  they 
only  connect  qualities  and  events  in  nature,  he  himself 
is  the  author  of  those  substances  and  causes,  and  thus 
comprehends  in  his  own  being  the  very  substance  in  its 
causality  of  all  the  pheomena  of  nature,  and  is  thus  wholly 
out  of  and  beyond  all  the  things  given  in  the  judgments  of 
our  understanding.  The  only  faculty  competent  to  reach 
and  know  the  objective  existence  of  such  a  Being  must  rise 
higher  than  merely  to  construct  within  limits  in  space  and 
time,  as  does  the  intellect  in  sense ;  and  higher  than  merely 
to  connect  such  constructions  in  a  nature  of  things,  as  does 
the  intellect  in  the  understanding ;  even  that  which  can 
comprehend  nature  itself  in  an  origination  from  liberty,  and 
a  consummation  in  the  final  ends  of  a  free  and  absolute  Per- 
sonality ;  and  which  can  possibly  belong  only  to  the  func- 
tions of  the  reason.  God  is  not  jihenomenon,  nor  substance 
and  cause  connecting  phenomena:  He  is  beyond  all  this,  for 
this  is  nature  only  and  is  God's  creature.  He  thus  as  truly 
transcends  the  understanding  as  He  does  the  sense,  and  can 
not  possibly  become  objectively  known  by  any  logical  pro- 
cess but  by  the  higher  faculty  of  the  reason.  All  philo?^^- 
phy  is    most    absurdly  denominated    Rationalism,    w/uch 


USES  OF  RATIONAL  PSYCHOLOGY.      67 

makes  its  ultimate  conclusions  to  be  in  nature,  and  denies 
that  there  is  any  thing  which  may  be  known  as  the  super, 
natural.  It  is  a  Rationalism  discarding  the  very  organ  and 
faculty  of  reason  itself. 

And  here  it  becomes  highly  important  to  note,  that  some 
of  the  strongest  entrenchments  of  skepticism  both  in  philos- 
ophy and  religion — some  of  the  most  elaborate  defences  of 
all  Infidelity — are  now  in  process  of  erection  upon  this  high 
ground.  Whether  named  Liberalism,  Neologism,  Rational- 
ism, or  Transcendentalism ;  its  foundation  is  here,  and  the 
superstructure  is  going  up  on  this  basis.  And  true  philoso- 
phy has  not  accomplished  her  work  and  fulfilled  the  end  of 
her  mission,  until  she  has  utterly  and  forever  demolished 
this  entire  foundation.  It  were  a  reproach  to  philosophy 
and  theology  to  delay  the  final  conquest  of  all  this  region, 
which  from  the  days  of  Moses  by  the  gift  of  divine  author- 
ity, and  from  the  days  of  Plato  by  the  right  of  original  dis- 
covery, has  been  the  domain  of  truth,  religion,  and  science ; 
and  which  only  by  a  lawless  usurpation  has  seemed  to  haxe 
passed  into  the  hands  of  aliens.  Every  mind  which  has 
worked  its  way  up  to  these  heights  of  human  thought,  well 
knows  that  in  this  pure  region  there  is  a  broad  and  fair 
inheritance  for  philosophy,  and  which  it  is  iiicnmbent  on 
her  to  explore,  to  possess,  and  to  cultivate.  If  some 
who  have  been  there,  growing  giddy  from  the  height 
or  dazzled  by  excess  of  the  brightness,  have  taken  wrong 
positions  and  run  fiilse  lines,  their  errors  are  surely  not 
to  be  redressed  by  ridicule  nor  railing  from  those  who  stand 
below,  but  effectually  in  nothing  short  of  girding  up  the 
loins,  and  ascending  to  the  same  heights,  and  making  so 
accurate  a  survey  as  shall  give  the  right  to  subvert  their 


68  INTRODUCTION. 

false  positions  and  abolish  their  wrong  landmarks.  Er. 
ror  any  where,  when  brought  within  the  grasp  of  truth,  is 
easily  crushed,  but  never  can  the  hand  of  truth  be  laid  upon 
those  errors  in  high  places,  except  as  some  shall  go  up  in 
hei*  name,  and  take  a  final  stand  upon  this  last  and 
highest  point  where  science  and  skepticism  may  grapple  in 
conflict. 

And  certainly,  the  only  possible  method  of  finding  such 
a  position  is  from  the  final  results  of  a  Rational  Psychology, 
which  having  given  the  laws  of  intelligence  in  the  functions 
of  the  sense  and  the  understaning,  now  completes  its  work 
in  the  attainment  of  the  conditional  laws  of  the  faculty  of 
the  reason ;  and  by  knowing  the  reason  in  its  law,  may  thus 
lay  the  foundation  for  demonstrating  the  valid  being  of  the 
Soul  in  its  liberty,  and  of  God  in  His  absolute  Personality, 
which  can  possibly  be  objects  for  the  faculty  of  the  reason 
alone.  A  true  and  comprehensive  Rational  Psychology  is  a 
necessary  preliminary  to  all  demonstrations  in  Ontology, 
and  the  subversion  of  skepticism  by  giving  a  position  which 
commands  the  whole  ground  of  its  fundamental  assump- 
tions. 

From  all  the  foregoing  considerations  it  is  now  manifest 
that  Rational  Psychology  may  subserve  the  purposes  of 
science  in  three  distinct  departments,  by  aifording  a  position 
from  which  skepticism  in  relation  to  the  valid  being  of  the 
objects  given  in  each,  may  be  met  and  counteracted.  We 
have  thus  three  distinct  fields  for  our  investigation,  and  in 
each  of  which  lie  some  of  the  most  important  questions 
fundamental  for  all  science.  We  need  to  determine  the 
conditioning  principles  of  perception  in  se7isatio7i ;  as  the 
basis  of  an  argument  for  demonstrating,  that  the  objects 


USES     OF    RATIONAL    PSYCHOLOGY.  69 

given  in  the  sense  as  single  qualities  and  exercises  are  real 
appearances.  We  need,  moreover,  to  determine  the  condi- 
tioning principles  of  all  judr/nients  in  the  understanding  ;  as 
the  ground  for  demonstrating  that  the  real  phenomena 
given  in  sense  are  connected  in  substances  and  causes  and 
thus  become  a  nature  of  things,  and  which  is  also  a  valid 
reality.  And  then,  lastly,  we  need  to  determine  the  condi- 
tionhig  principles  of  all  comprehension  of  a  nature  of 
things  in  the  faaidty  of  the  reason  y  as  the  ground  for  a 
demonstration  that  the  Soul  in  its  liberty,  and  that  the 
Deity  in  His  personality,  are  valid  existences.  The  Psy- 
chology terminates  in  the  science  of  the  faculties  of  the 
sense,  the  understanding,  and  the  reason ;  and  when  this  is 
made  the  basis  of  a  further  demonstration  for  the  valid 
being  of  the  objects  thus  given,  the  science  becomes  Ontol- 
ogy- 

In  this  may  be  seen  an  outline  of  the  work  which  is  here 
proposed  to  be  accomplished.  The  course  lies  in  the  direc- 
tion toward  the  highest  attainments  of  thought  to  which 
the  human  mind  may  elevate  itself.  So  far  forth  as  our 
positions  shall  be  taken  in  thoMe  a  priori  demonstrations 
which  are  given  in  the  necessary  and  universal  laws  of  intel- 
ligence, we  may  compel  the  convictions  of  even  skepticism 
itself,  and  settle  the  rights  and  substantiate  the  claims  of 
science  to  all  her  possessions.  This  is  not  the  place  to 
affirm  the  competency  to  put  these  topics  in  the  clear  light 
of  an  a  priori  demonstration ;  bat  we  are  about  to  make 
the  attempt,  in  all  humility  and  with  some  sense  of  the  mag- 
nitude and  difficulty  of  the  task,  to  explore  how  far  we  may 
6nd  ground,  and  how  firm  it  may  be,  for  putting  up  oat 


YO  INTRODUCTION. 

intellectual  buildings,  and  securing  a  completed  structure  of 
human  science.  Is  the  human  mind  shut  up  to  faith  on  all 
subjects  ?  or  are  there  some  paths  which  lead  to  science  f 
So  far  as  the  present  attempt  can  avail,  the  sequel  miist 
determine  to  which  alternative  wc  are  left. 


RATIONAL    PSYCHOLOGY. 


GENERAL    METHOD. 

CoxviCTiox  from  testimony  is  Faith  ;  experience  in  con- 
sciousness is  Knoicledge  ;  and  the  facts  in  experience  car- 
ried back  to  a  law  which  binds  them  together  in  systematic 
unity  is  Science.  When  this  law  is  found  by  bringing 
many  conspii'ing  facts  together,  and  assum.ed  to  be  miiver- 
sal  because  it  expounds  and  combines  them  so  far  as 
applied,  it  is  inductive  or  empirical  science.  When  the  law 
is  determined  from  a  necessary  principle,  and  thus  in  the 
principle  it  is  beforehand  seen  what  the  law  and  therein  also 
what  the  facts  must  be,  it  is  transcendental  or  rational 
science.  The  last  only  is  the  science  now  contemplated,  and 
the  following  process  is  conditional  for  its  validity  as  the 
true  science  of  realities. 

The  principle  must  be  an  ultimate  truth,  which  in  the 
insight  of  the  reason  is  given  as  having  in  itself  necessity 
and  universality.,  and  which  consequently  is  not  conditioned 
by  power  but  must  itself  condition  all  power.  It  is  thus  no 
fact.,  or  thing  made,  but  an  eternal  truth  which  in  the  rea- 
son determines  how  things  must  be  made.  Thus,  no  three 
points  can  be  made,  which  must  not  be  in  one  plane ;  and 


72  RATIONAL    PSYCHOLOGY. 

no  cone  can  be  made,  which  must  not  with  its  diameter  on 
all  sides  through  its  base  and  surface  be  a  right-angled 
triangle.  With  such  principle  as  an  ultimate  truth  in  pos- 
session, it  must  further  be  competent  to  carry  its  determina- 
tions all  through  the  process  that  is  to  be  passed  in  the 
making,  and  thus  beforehand  see  how  the  principle  is  a 
perfect  scheme  for  the  fact.  As  in  the  cone,  it  is  competent 
vO  see  that  a  right-angled  triangle  revolving  about  one  of 
its  sides  containing  the  right  angle  is  a  perfect  scheme  for 
its  making.  The  universal  principle  goes  through  and 
determines  every  part  of  the  process,  and  except  as  you  can 
so  carry  the  principle  through  the  process  you  can  never 
determine  that  you  have  made  an  exact  cone.  In  this  per- 
fect scheme  for  the  fact  we  have  beforehand  a  complete 
Idea  of  the  fact.  But  so  far,  this  is  only  a  science  of  the 
possible  and  not  yet  a  science  of  any  reality.  Perhaps 
there  is  no  actual  maker,  or  no  existing  material,  that  shall 
secure  such  a  fact  really  to  be.  The  animal  could  not  make 
the  exact  cone  if  he  had  the  material,  and  the  rational  man 
could  not  make  it  if  he  had  no  other  than  fluid  materials. 

Some  really  existing  fact  must  be  given  in  which  we 
can  find  a  Law  running  all  through  it,  and  which  gives 
exact  relationship  to,  and  is  an  zVzforming  bond  for,  all  the 
parts,  and  which  expounds  the  being  and  working  of  the 
who^e  thins:,  and  in  that  law  we  shall  have  a  science  of  the 
thing.  If  the  Law,  however,  be  only  hypothetical,  viz., 
that  which  would  expound  the  thing  if  we  knew  the  Law 
itself  were  true,  or  which  we  assume  to  be  true  and  univer- 
sal because  it  serves  so  well  to  the  extent  that  we  can  apply 
it,  then  is  the  science  of  that  fact  only  inductive  or  empiri 
col ;  viz.,  good  or  valid  so  far  as  the  induction  of  particular 


GENERAL    METHOD. 

experiences  lias  gone.  But  if  wc  can  take  the  Law  and  find 
it  to  be  in  complete  accordance  with  tlic  Idea  which  has 
been  determined  by  an  Eternal  principle,  then  have  we  a 
science  for  the  Law,  as  well  as  for  the  flict  in  the  Law,  and 
such  becomes  a  transcendental  or  rational  science  of  a  real- 
ity. We  know  both  that  the  fact  is,  and  how  it  is.  The 
reality  has  a  Law  determined  m  an  Eternal  principle,  and 
thus  both  Law  and  Idea  come  together  in  exact  correspond- 
ence. The  only  valid  criterion  for  true  science  is,  then, 
this  determined  correspondence  of  Idea  and  Law. 

It  will  make  no  difference  which  is  first  found  the  Law 
or  the  Idea.  The  fiict  taken  will  ordinarily  lead  to  the 
Law,  and  the  study  of  the  Law  in  the  light  of  reason  will 
bring  out  the  Idea,  and  thus  the  science  will  be  learned ;  or 
the  Idea  may  be  first  attained  hi  the  reason,  and  the  fact 
made  from  it,  and  this  put  as  law  into  the  fact,  and  thus  the 
science  will  be  created.  But  whether  as  creator  or  learner, 
in  each  case  the  Idea  in  the  reason  and  the  Law  in  the  fact 
are  both  attained,  and  found  to  be  in  complete  accordance. 
The  Inventor  of  the  steam-engine  first  had  the  Idea,  the 
observer  first  had  the  Law,  but  both  come  to  have  Idea  and 
Law  in  known  correspondence. 

And  now  it  is  the  Intellect  itself  that  we  seek  to  bring 
witliin  this  exact  science.  We  strive  to  attain  a  Rational 
Psychology. 

By  attaining  the  different  intellectual  faculties  and  their 
functions  of  operation  in  all  ways  of  knowing,  and  before- 
hand seeing  how  a  way  to  a  rational  demonstration  may  be 
made  to  Ue  over  this  groundwork  of  a  necessary  idea  con- 
formed to  an  objective  law,  we  shall  at  once  determine  what 
our  General  Method  must  be. 

4 


^4  RATIONAL    PSYCHOLOGY. 

Mind  is  an  agent,  spontaneous  in  its  activity,  and  puts 
forth  its  agency  in  three  distinct  capacities — the  sentient,  the 
intellectual,  and  the  voluntary.  The  products  of  these  spe- 
cific capacities  of  action  may  bq  termed  respectively,  sensa- 
tions, cognitions,  and  volitions :  the  capacities  themselves 
are  the  Sensibility,  the  Intellect,  and  the  Will.  The  mind 
as  one  agent  is  competent  for  action  in  these  three  capaci- 
ties. Rational  Psychology  is  conversant  with  all  these 
capacities,  but  is  more  particularly  concerned  with  the  func- 
tions of  the  Intellect,  and  with  the  others  as  conditional  for 
this,  rather  than  giving  to  them  a  direct  attention. 

The  Intellect  is  inclusive  of  the  entire  capacity  for 
knowing,  and  is  the  source  for  all  cognitions  attainable 
through  whatever  faculty.  The  cognitions  differ,  not 
numerically  merely,  but  also  in  kind,  as  they  are  the  prod- 
ucts of  the  Intellect  through  different  faculties.  These  dif- 
ferent faculties  are,  the  sense,  the  understanding,  and 
THE  reason.  What  these  are  respectively  as  distinguished 
from  each  other,  and  what  their  relations  and  dependencies, 
will  better  appear  in  the  progress  of  our  investigation.  It 
is  of  importance  here  only  to  note,  that  their  distinction  is 
fundamental,  and  any  confounding  of  one  with  the  others 
must  necessarily  induce,  not  obscurity  merely,  but  errors, 
contradictions,  and  absurdities.  These  three  faculties 
include  all  the  powers  of  human  intelligence,  and  fill  our 
entire  capacity  for  intellectual  action ;  nor  may  we  attain 
the  conceptions  of  any  other  form  of  intellectual  agency  for 
any  being.  So  far  as  human  conception  can  reach,  we  have 
exhausted  the  entire  subject  of  psychological  investigation 
in  reference  to  all  possible  forms  of  knowledge,  when  we 
have   attained   the   functions,   and   their  law   of  operation 


GENERALMETHOD.  76 

respectively  of  the  Sense,  the  Uuderstauding,  and  the  Rea- 
son. 

Inasmuch  as  our  design  is  not  the  mere  attainment  of 
the  cognitions  given  in  any  or  all  of  these  faculties,  and 
which  Avould  stand  only  as  simple  appearance  in  conscious- 
ness ;  but  much  further  than  this,  viz.,  the  law  for  the  pro- 
cess itself,  and  thereby  an  interpretation  of  the  intellectual 
agency,  and  not  merely  a  consciousness  of  the  products  of 
tliis  agency ;  it  becomes  necessary  that  we  attain  the  subjec- 
tive idea  of  each  distinct  faculty,  and  also  the  objective  law 
of  each,  and  the  determination  that  they  stand  to  each  other 
as  correlatives.  The  appearance  in  consciousness  may  be 
termed  knowledge ;  but  it  is  only  the  philosophical  interpre- 
tation of  the  process  by  which  this  knowledge  as  appear- 
ance in  consciousness  is  attained,  that  can  properly  be 
termed  science.  And,  moreover,  since  it  is  not  from  expe- 
rience that  we  seek  to  attain  our  subjective  idea — Avhich 
could  only  attain  to  the  affirmation  that  so  our  form  of  cog- 
nition is  ;  or,  that  so  in  future  it  must  be,  on  the  hypotheti- 
cal assumption  that  all  experience  must  be  uniform ;  and  in 
this  way  merely  an  inductive  science,  which  is  incompetent 
to  exclude  skepticism  from  its  very  foundation — but  we 
seek  this  subjective  idea  as  transcendental,  and  conditional 
for  any  experience  in  knowing,  and  such  as  that  according 
to  it  only  is  the  process  of  intellectual  agency  at  all  possi- 
ble, and  thereby  attaining  to  a  rational  science  which  may 
expel  all  skepticism  from  both  fr  undation  and  superstruc- 
ture ;  it  becomes  necessary  that  we  attain  to  a  position 
which  transcends  all  experience,  and  in  that  pure  region 
mtelligently  and  demonstrably  possess  ourselves  of  the  con^ 
ilitioning  idea,  determinative  of  how  a  knowledge  in  the 


76  RATIONAL    PSYCHOLOGY. 

sense,  and  in  the  understanding,  and  in  the  reason,  respect- 
ively, is  possible  to  be,  and,  therefore,  if  such  knowledge 
ever  actually  is,  how  it  must  be. 

But,  further,  inasmuch  as  such  subjective  idea  is  but  a 
mere  void  thought,  and  only  determinative  of  how  it  is  pos- 
sible a  knowledge  may  be  in  either  one  of  the  faculties  of 
the  sense,  the  understanding,  and  the  reason,  it  becomes 
necessary  that  we  go  further,  in  the  case  of  each,  and  attain, 
in  the  actual  facts  of  such  different  kinds  of  cognitions,  a 
manifest  law  running  through  the  facts  and  binding  them  up 
in  systematic  order ;  and  then  also  determine  that  this  law 
in  the  facts,  is  the  exact  correlative  of  that  determined  idea, 
which  it  had  already  been  found  must  regulate  all  possible 
experience  in  knowing. 

Our  work  thus  necessarily  divides  itself  into  three  parts 
— the  Faculty  of  the  Sense ;  of  the  Understanding ;  and  of 
the  Reason.  We  must  attain  the  subjective  Idea  for  each, 
and  also  the  objective  Law  of  each ;  and  in  each  case  deter- 
mine the  correlation  of  the  idea  and  the  law  respectively. 
In  this  we  shall  have  reduced  each  faculty  of  knowledge  to 
a  rational  science,  and  in  this  Rational  Psychology  will  be 
completed.  Moreover,  in  these  conclusions  of  Rational 
Psychology,  we  shall  find  the  data  for  demonstrating  the 
valid  being  of  the  objects  given  through  these  intellectual 
faculties ;  and  thus  in  each  department  wt  tiijvy  add  also  the 
outlines  of  an  Ontological  Demonstratior. 


PAET   I. 

THE     SENSE 


DEFINITIONS  AND  SPECIFIC  METHOD. 

In  the  Sense  I  include  our  whole  faculty  for  bringing 
any  object  within  the  distinct  light  of  consciousness,  and 
making  it  there  immediately  to  appear ;  and  such  cogni- 
tions, as  appearance  in  consciousness,  constitute  knowledge 
in  the  sense.  The  intellectual  agency,  which  takes  up  these 
appearances  in  consciousness  as  distinct  objects  of  knowl- 
edge, I  term  apprehension.  When  the  apprehension  is  that 
of  appearance  having  position  and  figure  in  space,  it  is  of 
the  external  sense;  when  the  apprehension  is  that  of 
appearance  determinative  of  the  inner  state  and  agency  of 
the  mind  itself,  and  thus  that  the  states  and  acts  of  the 
mind  become  its  own  objects  in  consciousness,  it  is  of  the 
internal  sense.  The  completed  process  in  the  functions  of 
the  sense  is  percej^tio?!,  ^dz.,  the  taking  of  the  appearance  as 
object  given  in  consciousness  through  some  medium.  The 
appearance,  as  object  perceived,  is  called  phe?io7nenon.  The 
states  and  acts  of  the  mind  apprehended  in  the  internal 
sense,  as  truly  as  the  objects  apprehended  in  the  external 
sense,  and  which  have  position  or  shape  in  space,  are  phe* 


18 


THE    SENSE. 


nomena ;  since  tbey  all  appear  in  conscionsnees  ?nd  are  tiius 
perceived.  We  as  truly  perceive  a  thought  or  an  emotion, 
as  we  do  a  color  or  a  sound.  The  phenomenon  has  its  mat- 
ter and  its  form.  The  matter  is  the  content  which  is  given 
from  somewhere  in  the  sensibility ;  and  the  form  is  that 
modification  of  the  matter  which  pa*mits  that  it  may  be 
classified,  or  ordered  in  particular  relationships  with  other 
phenomena. 

The  capacity  for  receiving  the  content,  as  matter  for  a 
phenomenon,  is  sensihility .  The  affection  induced  by  the 
reception  of  the  content  in  the  sensibility  is  sensation.  In 
this  we  include  the  affection  particularly  which  precedes  per- 
ception, and  is  conditional  for  it.  The  eye  or  the  ear,  as 
organ  of  sensibility,  may  be  affected  in  a  content  from  some- 
where given,  as  by  the  rays  of  fight  or  the  undulations  of 
the  air,  and  this  imj^ression  or  affection  is  it  precisely,  which 
we  mean  by  sensation,  and  which  is  the  condition  for  the 
intellectual  apprehension  and  perception.  There  is,  also,  an 
affection  of  the  inner  state  which  may  succeed  tlie  j^ercep- 
tion,  and  for  which  the  perception  is  conditional.  The  per- 
ceived landscape,  or  music,  etc.,  may  affect  the  inner  state 
agreeably  or  otherwise,  and  such  affection,  if  called  a  sensa- 
tion, should  be  distinguished  from  the  result  of  an  organic 
affection.  We  might  call  the  organic  sensibility  the  SeU'- 
soriwn^  and  the  sensibility  of  the  inner  state  the  Sensory  ; 
and  the  products  or  affections  in  the  first,  sensations  ;  and 
those  in  the  last,  emotions  ;  and  the  distinction  would  be 
sufficiently  marked.  But  in  the  case  of  knowledge  through 
sense,  we  have  occasion  only  for  a  reference  to  that  which 
-[/recedes  perception,  and  shall  not  need  here,  therefore,  to 
recognize  any  such  distinction. 


SPECIFIC    METHOD.  79 

The  faculty  for  giving  form  to  the  matter  in  the  sensa- 
tion is  the  Iinagination.  It  is  the  faculty  which  conjoins 
and  defines — the  constructmg  faculty— and  is  a  peculiar 
intellectual  process,  which  may  hereafter  in  our  work  be 
better  disclosed.  It  is  sufficient  here  to  say,  that  while  this 
is  essentially  the  same  operation  that  gives  form  to  the 
material  already  in  sensation,  and  tliat  which  constructs 
form  in  pure  space ;  i.  e.,  it  is  the  same  agency  which  gives 
roundness  to  the  ring  or  the  wheel  in  sensation,  as  that 
which  constructs  the  roundness  of  a  mathematical  circle  in 
pure  space;  yet  is  the  term  Imagination  more  appropri- 
ately applied  to  the  latter  than  the  former.  The  last  is 
purely  the  work  of  the  intellect,  and  thus  wholly  from  ima- 
gination; the  first  has  been  conditioned  in  its  intellectual 
agency  by  the  content  in  sensation.  They  may  be  distin- 
guished as  an  act  of  attention.^  and  an  act  of  hnag [nation. 

An  object  which  is  void  of  all  content  in  sensation,  and 
has  only  its  limits  constructed  in  space  or  time,  is  termed 
pure ;  while  such  object  as  has  a  content  in  the  sense  is 
termed  empirical.  Thus,  any  mathematical  diagram  is  pure 
object ;  and  any  color,  or  weight,  or  sound,  etc.,  is  empirical 
object.  Intuition  is  an  immediate  beholding ;  and  is  pure 
intuition  when  the  beholding  is  in  reference  to  a  pure 
object,  and  empirical  intuition  when  the  beholding  is  in 
reference  to  an  empirical  object.  Thus,  the  immediate 
beholding  of  three  times  three  mathematical  points  in  space 
•  •  •  to  be  nine,  is  a  pure  intuition ;  but  the  immediate 
beliolding  of  three  times  three  material  balls,  or  counters, 
to  be  nine  balls  or  counters,  is  an  empirical  intuition.  Inas- 
much as  the  whole  field  in  which  the  objects  are  given  in 
the  sense  is  to  be  examined,  we  shall  have  occasion  to  make 


60  THESENSE. 

a  Division  in  this  part  of  our  work,  and  attain  the  subjec- 
tive idea  of  the  process  in  the  sense  in  the  construction  and 
apprehension  of  pure  objects,  and  also  of  empirical  objects. 
And  here  we  are  ready  to  give  the  Specific  Metliod  of 
our  process  of  Rational  Psychology  for  the  faculty  of  the 
Sense.  We  isolate  this  from  all  the  other  functions  for 
knowing,  and  must  in  our  first  Chapter^  from  an  a  priori 
position,  attain  the  subjective  Idea  of  how  perception  in 
sense  is  possible ;  and,  as  this  must  include  both  the  form  in 
the  apprehension  and  the  content  in  the  sensation,  so  there 
must  be  the  two  Divisions^  the  Idea  in  the  pure  Intuition, 
and  the  Idea  in  the  empirical  Intuition.  In  a  second  Chap- 
ter^ we  must  attain  an  ohjective  Law  in  the  facts  of  percep- 
tion, and  determine  the  correlation  of  this  Idea  and  Law. 
"We  may  then  give  the  outline  of  an  Ontologiccd  Demmtr 
stration. 


CHAPTER    I. 

TIIE  SENSE  m  ITS  SUBJECTIVE  IDEA. 


FIRST  DIVISION. 

THE   IDEA   IN   THE   PURE  INTUITION 


SECTION    I. 

THE     ATTAINMENT     OF     AN     A     PRIORI     POSITION. 

All  human  knowledge  begins  in  experience.  Except 
phei\oniena  are  given  in  the  sense,  and  the  intellect  quick- 
ened into  activity  in  perception,  it  can  exert  neither  the 
faculty  of  the  understanding  nor  the  reason,  but  the  human 
mind  remains  a  void  and  no  cognition  is  2)ossible.  We 
must  begin  our  intellectual  action  in  sensation.  But  experi- 
ence can  include  the  real  and  the  limited  only,  while  there 
are  cognitions  of  the  strictly  necessary  and  universal ;  and 
thus  is  it  manifest  that  our  intellectual  agency,  which  begins 
in  the  perceptions  of  the  sense,  is  not  confined  to  exj^erience 
merely.  All  Mathematical  Axioms,  at  least,  are  a  priori 
cognitions,  independent  of  power,  not  deducible  from  any 
data  in  experience;  but  including  all  possible  experience,  and 
in  their  own  light  seen  to  be  necessary  and  universal.  That 
a  straight  line  is  the  shortest  A\hich  can  join  any  two  points; 

4* 


S3  THESENSEINITSIDEA. 

that  no  two  straight  lines  can  enclose  a  space ;  that  any  two 
sides  of  a  triangle  must  together  be  greater  than  a  third 
side,  etc.,  are  cognitions  not  possible  to  be  given  in  expei-i- 
ence,  for  no  experience  comprehends  them  while  they 
include  all  possible  experience.  They  are  no  product  of 
power,  for  they  condition  all  power  in  their  own  necessity 
of  being ;  they  are  no  deduction  from  facts,  for  they  are 
inclusive  of  universal  facts.  We  shall  in  our  progress  find 
wide  regions  of  necessary  truth,  as  independent  of  the 
experience  given  in  sensation  as  mathematical  axioms,  and 
which  the  human  mind  may  possess  as  cognitions ;  and 
thus  the  fact  is  plain,  that  while  the  intellect  begins  its 
agency  in  the  functions  of  the  sense,  it  yet  subsequently 
attains  cognitions  which  are  altogether  beyond  every  pos- 
sible empirical  apprehension. 

And,  here,  our  first  care  is  to  lay  open  a  plain  passage 
from  the  phenomenal  to  the  transcendental,  and  attain  a 
position  upon  such  a  ^y^'iori  cognitions  as  shall  subserve  our 
main  design  in  a  Rational  Psychology,  and  by  such  a  pro- 
cess as  shall  admit  of  clear  and  satisfactory  examination  at 
every  step ;  and  thus,  having  taken  our  position  out  from 
experience,  we  may  proceed  to  the  philosophical  investiga- 
tion of  how  experience  must  be. 

The  Intellect  may  not  take  a  leap  in  the  dark  out  of  tlie 
world  of  sense  in  which  its  agency  beghis  into  tlie  pure 
region  of  rational  cognitions,  but  must  be  competent  t 
expound  to  itself  and  to  others  how  it  has  reached  its  start- 
ing point  in  a  transcendental  philosophy.  A  surreptitious 
passage  is,. also,  equally  as  inadmissible  as  a  blind  and  pre- 
sumptuous leap  to  the  necessary  and  the  universal.  Dog- 
matism may  arbitrarily  assume,  or  sophistry  mpy  Avrap  itself 


AN    A     PRIORI     POSITION    ATTAINED.  83 

in  specious  fallacies  stealthily  to  take,  the  ground  on  which 
is  to  be  built  a  rational  philosophy,  but  in  no  such  way  shall 
wa  establish  a  title  for  science,  or  dispossess  the  skeptic  of 
the  territory  he  has  usurped.  We  must  be  able  first  to 
tra.ce  our  pathway  out  from,  and  be  competent  to  return 
again  tc;  the  familiar  region  of  the  phenomenal,  and  to 
deteixuine  its  bearings  and  distances  from  the  purely  intellec- 
tual. We  shall  thus  readily  determine,  that  though  subse- 
quently attained  by  us,  yet  is  the  necessary  and  the  univer- 
sal the  truly  primitive  region.  In  the  process  of  our  intel- 
lectual acquirement  the  empirical  is  first,  but  in  the  order  of 
conditioned  relations  the  empirical  is  last.  In  this  point  of 
view  the  distinction  made  between  a  logical  and  a  cJirono- 
loylcal  order  is  significant.  As  logical  condition  the  neces- 
sary and  the  universal  are  before  the  conditioned  and  the 
partial ;  the  possible  before  the  actual,  the  intellectual  before 
the  phenomenal.  Just  as  in  the  work  of  nature  the  germ 
precedes  the  plant ;  the  embryo  is  before  the  adult ;  the 
cause  antecedent  to  the  efiect.  Yet  as  in  nature,  empiri- 
cfdly  ai)prehended,  we  are  forced  to  reverse  the  j^rocess,  so 
is  it  also  in  Empirical  Psychology.  In  learning  nature  in 
experience  w^e  do  not  first  find  ourselves  at  the  original 
sources  of  her  secret  operations,  but  quite  upon  the  outside 
of  all  her  products.  We  can  not  look  on  and  watch  the 
23rogress  of  her  mysterious  developments,  as  the  W'Ork  goes 
onward  from  the  central  salient  point  to  its  consummation  ; 
but  we  must  retrace,  as  we  may,  what  has  been  done  by 
following  back  the  print  of  her  footsteps.  Thus,  ni  the 
intellectual  operations,  we  first  find  the  phenomenal  as 
already  given,  and  then  go  back  to  the  intellectual ;  we 
have  first  the  fact,  and  then  we  search  out  the  principle  j 


84  THESENSEINITSIDEA. 

first  the  knowledge,  then  the  scientific  conditions  by  which 
it  was  possible  we  shonld  know.  Thus  the  first  is  last,  and 
the  last  is  first.  With  the  phenomenal  in  possession  it  is 
incumbent,  first,  to  find  our  way  out  to  the  purely  intellec- 
tual, and  having  attained  the  transcendental  position,  there 
note  that  though  chronologically  last  found,  yet  that  logi- 
cally it  was  first,  and  necessarily  conditional  for  tLe  phe- 
nomenal from  whence  we  started. 

Commencing  with  the  phenomenal,  the  process  will  be 
to  make  an  abstraction  of  all  that  has  come  into  conscious- 
ness through  sensation,  and  thereby  find  that  which  was 
prior  to,  and  conditional  for,  the  perception.  When  the 
matter  shall  be  taken  away,  the  real  form  will  remain ;  and 
when  that  which  gave  reality  to  the  form  is  taken  away,  the 
possible  or  pure  form  only  is  left,  and  tliis  pure  form  separ- 
ated into  its  pure  diversity  is  ihQ  primitive  intuition. 

I.  The  primitive  iiituition  for  all  phenomena  of  cm  sx- 
terncd  sejise. — Whatever  object  we  may  apprehend  in  an 
experience — a  house,  tree,  mountain,  etc., — it  is  for  the 
sense ;  and  as  phenomenal,  an  assemblage  of  single  qualities 
only.  We  now  take  any  such  object — a  house — and  pro- 
ceed to  make  abstraction  of  the  several  phenomena  which 
any  organs  of  sense  have  given  in  the  perception.  Color 
has  appeared,  and  we  now  exclude  it ;  smoothness  or  ]-ough- 
ness,  hard  or  soft,  weight  or  resistance,  as  they  have  been 
given,  we  now  take  away;  and  so  also  of  sounds,  odors, 
tastes,  or  any  qualities  of  any  possible  function  of  the  sense, 
we  now  remove  ;  and  thus  make  a  complete  abstraction  of 
all  content  which  the  entire  sensibility  may  ha^  e  received. 
We  shall  have  still  remaining  the  void  place  which  had  been 
occupied  by  the  qualities  now  abstracted.     This  remains  f.n 


AN    A    PRIORI    POSITION    ATTAINED  85 

the  intellect  alone,  and  is  as  nothing  m  the  experience ;  but 
for  the  intellect  it  remains  immovable  and  indestructible. 
It  remains  in  defiance  of  all  further  attempts  to  a  more  com- 
plete abstraction  in  that  place.  It  is  the  real  fo?'m  of  that 
object  from  which  the  content  has  now  been  utterly  taken 
away. 

But,  although  we  have  taken  away  all  content  of  sense, 
and  can  not  go  ftirther  and  take  away  the  place,  still  have 
we  not  taken  away  all  product  of  the  intellect.  There  is  a 
defined  and  limited  place,  a  constructed  form  Avhich  has  real 
outline  and  shape,  and  we  may  intellectually  proceed  fur- 
ther in  this  direction  with  our  abstraction,  and  take  away 
that  which  limits  and  defines  this  void  place,  and  thus  anni- 
hilate that  in  which  its  unity  and  wholeness  exists.  We 
have  then  a  void  which  is  limitless,  undefined,  unconjoined 
into  any  total,  and  whi^.h  is  simply  a  pure  intuition  of  what 
is  possible  for  form  and  content. 

In  this  abstraction  of  all  content  and  all  form,  and  thus 
the  removal  of  all  that  can  come  into  any  outer  experience, 
we  have  taken  away  that  which  can  be .  common  to  us  with 
others,  and  have  left  only  a  limitless  void,  which,  as  similar 
in  each,  lies  distinct  in  each  one's  consciousness  who  has 
made  the  complete  abstraction.  There  are  as  many  limit- 
less voids  as  there  are  subjective  consciousnesses  in  which 
the  content  and  form  has  been  taken  away.  They  can  not 
now,  in  tlie  absence  of  all  outer  object,  commune  with  each 
other,  but  each  one  is  shut  in  within  his  own  limitless  void 
in  his  own  consciousness.  Still,  each  one  can  proceed  with 
a  further  abstraction.  The  void  in  each  is  limitless,  but  it  is 
etill  in  unity.  Every  part  is  a  concrete  with  every  other 
p5rt.     The   abstraction   may   proceed    to   take   away   that 


B6  THESENSEIXITSIDEA. 

which  holds  all  parts  in  connection  to  all  others,  and  we 
shall  liave  left  a  limitless  void,  wholly  unconstructed  in 
unity,  and  standing  in  the  subjective  consciousness  as  so 
many  contiguous  void  points,  which  do  not  coalesce 
together.  The  limitless  void  is  a  manifold  of  void  hmits, 
which  stand  only  as  pure  limits,  without  any  limited.  And 
here  it  is  impossible  that  we  should  carry  the  abstrac- 
tion further  in  any  direction.  As  the  condition  that  a  sense 
should  be  in  which  the  phenomenal  may  be  given  in  any  ex- 
tension as  real  form,  there  must  be,  as  its  back-ground  in  the 
consciousness,  this  manifoldness  of  void  points.  Take  this 
away,  and  no  place  can  be  made  in  which  the  phenomenal 
can  appear  in  real  form.  Attempt  to  take  this  away,  and 
you  are  stopped  in  the  very  absurdity  of  the  process ;  the 
void  Umit  must  still  be,  even  in  the  very  point  from  whence 
it  is  assumed  to  have  been  abstracted.  This  is  pure  space  as 
given  in  a  primitive  intuition.  When  I  have  in  conscious- 
ness a  mathematical  line,  circle,  or  other  diagram,  I  have 
such  mathematical  figure  in  ^:>z^re  intuition,  but  such  con- 
struction of  the  figure  was  possible  on  the  condition  only 
that  there  was  first  the  void  points  in  the  primitive  intui- 
tion. 

Pure  space  in  the  primitive  intuition  is  thus  a  rational 
cognition  necessary  and  universal.  Though  now  attained 
in  abstraction  from  experience,  and  in  chronological  order 
subsequent  to  experience,  yet  is  it  a  priori  conditional  for 
expeiience  and  without  which  no  appearance  of  outer  object 
could  be.  It  is  a  transcendental  cognition,  and  yet  in  its 
necessity  is  more  valid  than  any  phenomenon  in  the  sense 
i!an  be. 

II.   TJie primitive  vituition  for  allthe phenome^ia  oj  hn 


AN     k    miORI    POSITION     ATTAINED.  87 

internal  sense. — In  the  light  of  consciousness  we  cliscriniin. 
ate  betwee-:!  one  mental  exercise  and  another,  and  thereby 
distinguish  all  the  diiferent  products  of  our  mental  fimc- 
tions,  sucli  as  thoughts,  emotions,  purposes,  etc.  These  are 
quite  different  phenomena  in  kind  frtm  all  such  as  appear 
externally  in  s^^ace,  and  must  therefore  have  their  pure  form 
originated  in  some  different  jirimitive  intuition. 

We  may  take  any  jjuenonjcna  as  they  come  and  depart 
in  our  inner  consciousness  and  thus  produce  changes  in  the 
internal  state.  It  may  be  a  train  of  thought  as  passing  in 
consciousness.  As  one  thought  comes  and  depai  Is  I'or  tlic 
introduction  of  another,  the  apprehension  of  them  must  be  in 
succession,  and  the  consciousness  possesses  Uiem  asser;uences 
in  a  series.  If  then  we  abstract  the  phenomenal  thoughts 
in  the  train  and  thus  take  away  all  the  content  in  these  suc- 
cessions, there  will  remain  the  instants  in  which  each  stood 
in  the  series,  and  wiiich  v,ill  in  connection  give  a  void  pe- 
riod that  had  been  occupied  by  the  passing  thoughts  now 
abstracted.  This  abides  for  the  intellect  only,  and  resists 
all  efforts  that  it  should  be  taken  away.  It  is  a  real  form 
for  the  content  taken  away,  and  is  itself  quite  indestructible. 

And  so  to  lue  same  end,  we  may  take  any  passing  phe- 
nomena of  the  external  senses.  As  apprehended  by  the  In- 
tellect, they  affect  the  internal  state  as  does  a  passing 
thought,  and  as  the  perception  of  one  plienomenon  passes 
and  another  arises  in  consciousness,  the  inner  sense  is  deter- 
mined as  successive  in  its  affections,  and  this  content  must 
Pll  a  period  in  the  i:mer  sense  as  truly  as  a  place  in  the  ex. 
t'^rnal  sense.  If  then  we  make  an  entire  abstraction  of  the 
phenomena  pei'ceived,  and  tluis  also  of  the  perceptions  as 
affecting  the  internal  state^  we  shall  have  the  successions  in 


88  THESENSEINITSIDEA. 

the  instants  in  which  they  occurred,  and  which,  as  Umited  by 
their  beginning  and  terminating,  is  a  void  period  as  the  real 
form  in  tlie  internal  sense,  and  which  in  the  abstraction  of 
the  content  is  itsolf  left  iiidestriictible.  While,  however, 
we  have  taken  away  all  phenoiiienal  content  and  can  not  go 
further  and  take  away  the  duration  in  the  period,  still  may 
we  carry  tlio  intellectual  abstraction  to  a  further  degree. 
We  may  take  away  the  limits  wliich  begin  and  terminate 
the  period,  :ind  thus  annihilate  that  which  gives  to  it  individ- 
uality and  definitencss,  and  there  will  then  be  duration  lim- 
itless and  indoHnito,  and  standing  out  as  the  bare  possibility 
of  what  may  be  limited  into  formal  periods  and  filled  by 
phenomenal  successions. 

In  this  removal  of  all  content  and  form  from  the  dura- 
tion, we  liave  taken  away  that  which  can  give  a  common 
duration  to  ourselves  with  others,  and  can  now  only  each 
one  have  his  own  duration  in  Ins  own  consciousness.  The 
successions  go  on  in  his  own  internal  sense,  aii(^  no  one  can 
ccmmune  with  the  successions  gohig  on  in  au/'lier's  con- 
sciousness. Still  may  each  one  carry  the  abstniction  to  a 
more  full  degree.  The  duration  in  each  is  limitless  but  still 
a  duration  in  a  connected  sequence.  The  so'^uences  are  all 
concrete  and  the  series  a  perj^etual  continuity.  We  may 
then  take  away  that  which  connects  the  sequences  in  con- 
tinued series,  and  we  shall  have  not  only  an  emptiness  of  all 
phenomena  aaid  limitation,  but  an  exclusion  of  all  coalescmg 
of  the  instants,  and  only  these  instants  in  their  diversity  and 
nianifoldness  will  remain,  as  the  bare  possibility  of  what 
may  be  combined  into  continuous  dui-ation  and  constructed 
into  successive  periods.  No  further  abstraction  is  possible, 
for  all  attempt  to  take  away  the  instant  and  have  that  which 


AN    APEIOKI    POSITION    ATTAINED.  89 

is  empty  of  all  instants  in  which  some  instant  might  again 
stand  is  an  absurdity.  Here  then  is  pure  tune  as  given  in  a 
l^rimitive  intuition,  and  which  is  conditional  for  all  arith- 
metical number  as  given  in  a  ^^wre  intuition. 

Pure  time  in  the  primitive  intuition  is  thus  a  necessary 
and  universal  rational  cognition,  attained  chronologically  by 
experience  and  yet  conditional  for  experience,  and  more  cer 
tain  than  any  appearance  in  experience  can  be. 

Inasmuch  as  all  phenomena  must  be  given  in  an  external 
or  an  internal  sense ;  and  pure  space  is  the  primitive  intuition 
for  all  possible  phenomena  of  an  external  sense  Avhich  must 
have  i)lace,  and  pure  time  is  the  primitive  intuition  for  all 
possible  phenomena  of  an  internal  sense  which  must  have 
period  ;  we  have  in  pure  space  and  time  the  primitive  intui- 
tion for  all  possible  phenomena.  And  as  w^e  have  taken 
pure  space  as  one  transcendental  position,  we  may  now  also 
take  pure  time  as  another,  satisfied  that  they  ar .  both  given 
in  an  a  priori  cognition,  and  that  they  give  to  us  the  possi- 
bihty  for  all  the  real  forms  in  which  the  intellect  can  order 
any  appearance  in  the  sense. 

Kow,  it  is  altogether  true,  that  the  faculty  of  the  sense 
can  not  overlook  and  in  an  a  priori  manner  examine  itself, 
and  go  back  and  take  up  positions  out  of  itself;  and  if  we 
had  no  other  faculty  than  that  of  perception  in  sensation, 
and  the  capability  of  abstracting  comparing  and  combining 
what  had  been  given  in  sensation,  most  certainly  we  could 
attain  no  transcendental  positions.  It  would  be  like  asking 
the  eye  to  see  itself,  or  the  touch  to  feel  itself;  thus  demand- 
ing that  experience  should  bring  itself  within  its  own  cir- 
cumscription and  by  subjecting  itself  to  its  own  action  liter- 
ally e\:perience  itself     But  certainly  we  encounter  no  such 


90  THESE  XSEIJilTSIDEA. 

absurdity  wlien  we  assume  a  faculty  higher  than  that  of  the 
sense,  and  which  is  competent  to  make  the  very  conditions 
of  sense  its  objects  of  cognition  ;  and  that  the  possesson  of 
such  higher  faculty  is  not  mere  assumption,  beside  the 
demonstration  which  will  be  given  in  its  proper  place,  we 
ha^■e  already  sufficient  evidence  in  the  above  results.  If  ail 
cognition  must  be  of  that  only  which  is  first  given  i'.i  the 
sensation,  then  certamly  the  primitive  intuition  of  pure 
space  and  t'me  must  be  an  impossibility.  When  we  have 
taken  away  the  content  of  sense  ve  should  have  no  possible 
cognition  left.  Space  and  time  would  be  not  only  void,  but 
it  would  be  a  void  of  space  and  of  time ;  and  the  intuition 
that  pure  space  and  time  were  prior  to  the  content  put 
within  them,  and  conditional  for  the  possibiHty  that  such 
content  should  appear,  w^ould  be  preposterous.  It  would  be 
making  the  sense  cognize  that  which  is  prior  to,  and  condi- 
tional for,  its  3\>^n  action.  Pure  space  and  time  are  never 
an  appearance  in  sense,  nor  at  all  a  part  of  what  is  given  in 
sense,  and  the  fact  that  we  cognize  them  at  all  is  the  evi- 
dence of  a  higher  faculty  than  sense,  and  especially  that  we 
cognize  them  to  be  necessarily  aad  universally  conditional 
for  all  perception  in  sense. 

We  are  making  no  assumptions  merely,  and  standing 
upon  no  mere  chimeras,  when  we  take  up  our  position,  in 
the  primitive  intuition,  upon  the  d  priori  cognitions  of  pure 
space  and  time.  That  they  are  the  primitive  forms  for  all 
possible  phenomena,  that  they  are  a  priori  to,  and  condi- 
tional for,  all  phenomena,  is  seen  in  their  necessity  and 
universality. 


CONSTRUCTION    OF    FOKM.  91 

SECTION    II. 

THE   PKOCESS  OF  AN  A  PRIORI    CONSTRUCTION    OF    REAL   FORM 
IN    PURE    SPACE    AND    TIME. 

Space  and  time  are  given  in  the  intuition.  They  are 
immediately  beheld,  and  this  irrespective  of  any  content  in 
the  sensibility,  and  are  thus  pure  Intuition ;  and  as  prior  to 
any  real  forms,  and  only  conditional  for  all  possible  forms  of 
figure  and  period,  they  are  priynitwe  Intuition.  As  purely 
in  the  primitive  intuition,  they  are  wholly  limitless,  and  void 
of  any  conjunction  in  unity,  having  themselves  no  figure  nor 
period,  and  having  within  themselves  no  figure  nor  period, 
but  only  a  pure  diversity  in  which  any  possible  conjunction 
of  definite  figures  and  periods  may,  in  some  way,  be  efliected. 
AYe  now  begin  our  work  from  this  transcendental  position, 
and  our  first  business  is  to  determine  the  process  by  which  a 
conjunction  may  be  eifected,  and  real  forms  be  constructed 
in  pure  space  and  time. 

Although  we  have  come  fiom  the  phenomenal  in  sense 
out  to  this  pure  condition  for  all  that  may  be  phenomena,  by 
abstractins:  all  that  has  been  j^iven  in  the  sensibility  and  the 
intellectual  agency,  yet  can  abstraction  be  of  no  further 
avail.  We  now  seek,  not  the  process  of  attaining  a  real 
form  by  beginning  with  some  phenomenon,  and  taking  away 
its  content  in  the  sensibility  thereby  leaving  its  void  form  ii? 
the  intellect,  which  would  be  but  an  empirical  process  ;  but 
we  Oegin  at  the  other  extreme  of  the  process,  and  seek  to 
construct  cur  real  forms  from  the  formless  and  limitless 
s})ace  an  tirn3  as  given  in  the  prhnitive  intuition,  and  in 
this  a  priori  process  determine  how  a  construction  of  real 


92  THE     SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

forms  ill  space  and  time  is  possible ;  and  thereby  for  what 
5ver  is,  a  determination  d  priori  how  it  must  have  been, 
and  for  all  that  is  to  be,  how  only  it  is  possible  that  it 
should  be. 

And  here,  Avith  space  and  time  as  given  in  the  primitive 
intuition,  where  all  is  mere  diversity  without  any  conjunc- 
tion in  unity,  and  therefore  wholly  limitless  and  indefinite — 
Avhere  all  possible  position,  shape  and  period  may  be,  but 
where  no  fixed  position,  defined  figure,  and  limited  period 
yet  is — it  is  manifest  that  nothing  can  appear  as  real  form 
in  any  intellectual  apprehension,  except  as  in  some  way  this 
real  form  be  constructed  as  product  within  this  primitive 
intuition.  As  utterly  void  of  all  construction  and  product, 
pure  space  and  time  must  ever  so  remain,  except  as  invaded 
by  some  constructing  agency,  which  shall  conjoin  what  is 
diverse,  and  limit  what  is  indefinite,  and  thereby  produce 
real  bounded  and  united  forms  Avithin  the  void  mtuition. 
Pure  space  and  time  are  not  agents  that  may  collect  them- 
selves into  definite  and  discriminate  portions  of  each,  and 
affix  precise  hmits  witM^  thamselves,  by  which  their  parts 
may  possess  outline  and  .-ach  become  one  whole  figure  in 
space  or  period  in  time.  Some  agency  ah  extra  must  make 
such  conjunctions,  and  give  such  limits.  But  the  primitive 
intuition  is  lo  agent  for  constructmg,  producing,  and  limit- 
ing ;  this  is  a  mere  inunediate  beholding  of  what  is,  and  no 
producer  of  it.  Thus,  as  no  constructed  real  forn  is  in  pure 
space  and  time,  the  primitive  intuition  can  nev3r  ot  itself 
attain  such  real  form.  The  intellectual  agency  as  imagina- 
tion, or  form  constructer,  which  Coleridge  calls  the  eisein- 
plastic  poicer^  from  ei(;  evTTAdrreiv  to  shape  in„o  r^o,  must 
btroduce  itself  within  the  void,  and  produce  Its  real  forms 


CONSTRUCTION     OF    FOEM.  93 

for  its  own  snbjec  ive  apprehension.  The  primitive  intui- 
tions of  space  and  time  can  never  take  real  form  within 
themselves,  and  w^hich  may  be  apprehended  as  definite 
figure  and  period,  except  through  such  intellectual  con- 
struction. 

We  will,  therefore,  look  minutely  to  this  entire  process 
of  an  intellectual  construction  of  real  forms  in  pure  space 
and  time,  inasmuch  as  in  this  will  be  found  the  subjective 
idea  of  the  sense  in  the  pure  intuition.  In  this  section  we 
w^ill  give  this  agency  in  its  results  only,  and  reserve  for  con- 
sideration in  future  sections  the  more  profound  and  difficult 
work  of  attaming  the  a  priori  jyrinciples  of  the  process. 

I.  The  construction  of  real  forms  in  pure  space. — Let 
there  be  an  intellectual  agency  given,  which  may  come 
within  the  field  of  the  primitive  intuition  in  pure  space,  and 
exert  its  constructive  faculty  therein,  and  let  us  notice  what 
must  be  its  results.  In  the  spontaneity  of  its  own  functions 
it  moves  through  the  void  in  })ure  space,  constantly  within 
the  intuition,  and  is  thus  perpetually  and  directly  beheld  in 
all  its  progress.  In  the  as  yet  uncollected  diversity  in  pure 
space,  this  agency  is  in  the  field  of  the  primitive  intuition, 
and  at  that  point  in  the  diversity  of  pure  space  a  position  is 
taken.  The  void  is  no  longer  empty.  A  point  is  made  to 
stand  distinctly  in  the  intuition,  and  is  a  limit  as  beginning 
or  starting-point  in  the  process.  As  this  agency  moves 
onw^ard  there  are  perpetually  new  positions  attained,  and 
new  points  made  to  stand  out  prominently  and  precisely  in 
the  intuition.  So  far  as  this  agency  goes  in  its  spontaneity, 
it  has  brought  the  diverse  points  through  which  it  passed 
into  a  conjunction,  and  made  its  own  pathway  precise  and 
plain  by  collecting  into  itself  the  points  as  continuous  con- 


94  THESENSEINITSIDEA. 

tiguity.  Here,  then,  is  a  definite,  real  form  as  j^roduct  oi 
the  intellectual  agency.  There  is  the  limit  or  starting-point; 
as  beginning ;  the  perpetuated  product  in  the  continuous 
points  all  conjoined  in  the  progressive  movement ;  and  there 
is  the  limit,  as  terminating  point  of  this  agency ;  and  here 
first  arises  in  the  intuition  a  completed  product,  and  a  defi- 
nite real  form — the  mathematical  Vuie — appears.  Pure 
space  is  no  longer  void  diversity  as  given  in  the  primitwe 
intuition,  but  a  conjunction  of  some  of  the  diversity  has 
been  effected,  and  a  line  as  one  whole  in  its  unity  is  cog- 
nized. This  is  wholly  a  product  of  the  productive  imagina- 
tion and  has  subjective  reality  only,  hence  as  void  of  all 
empirical  content  it  is  j>wre  object,  and  is  cognized  in  ijare 
intuition  /  but,  as  being  real  form  produced  in  pure  space, 
there  is  more  than  the  mere  diversity  in  the  prbnitive  intui- 
tion. 

And  now,  nothing  hinders,  that  such  an  intellectual 
agency  may  be  possible  in  its  going  forth  to  the  construc- 
tion of  all  possible  forms  in  pure  space.  Right  lines,  and 
lines  which  shall  be  joined  in  their  terminations  in  all  possi- 
ble relative  directions,  and  thus  holding  between  them  all 
possible  angles,  and  which  may  enclose  all  possible  rectilin- 
ear figures,  may  be  constructed.  Curved  lines,  and  of  all 
possible  circularity  and  modification  of  curvature,  and  meet- 
ing in  the  construction  of  all  possible  curvilinear  angles  and 
figures,  and  the  blending  of  right  and  curved  lines  in  al 
possible  modifications  of  mutual,  relationship  in  angle  and 
shape,  may  be  produced  from  all  possible  positions  in  pure 
space.  All  the  real  forms  possible  in  pure  space  are  thus  of 
practicable  production  in  a  pure  intuition.  In  the  particu- 
lar is  given  the  universal,  and  it  is  an  a  priori  cognition, 


CONSTRUCTION    OF    FOKM.  95 

trat  as  one  pure  object  may  be  thus  conGtructecl,  so  it  is 
competent  that  all  the  real  forms  which  pure  space  may 
receive  can  in  the  same  way  be  constructed.  And  as  such 
construction  may  be,  so  also  it  is  an  d  2:>riori  cognition  that, 
if  at  all,  thus  they  must  be  constructed.  The  primitive 
intuition  can  give  the  diversity  in  its  unconjoined  manifold- 
ness  only ;  and  if  any  conjunction,  in  the  unity  of  a  definite 
real  form  as  pure  object,  be  effected,  it  must  be  through  the 
constructing  agency  of  some  eisemplastic  or  form-producing 
faculty.  The  pure  object  must  be  given  to  the  pure  intui- 
tion, by  some  intellectual  agency  constructing  it  within  the 
field  of  its  innnediate  beholdhig.  We  have  in  this  way  the 
process  of  an  mtellectual  agency,  or  productive  imagination, 
which  results  in  an  a  2^^^^^'^  possibility  for  all  real  forms  in 
pure  space. 

II.  T/w  eo7istri(ctio7i  of  real  fonns  in  pure  tim^  — Time 
as  pure  in  the  primitive  intuition,  is  like  pure  space  utterly 
unconjoined  and  indefinite.  It  is  conditional  for  all  possible 
periods,  but  as  yet  it  is  wholly  a  diversity  of  instants,  and 
no  definite  and  limited  period  has  been  given  witliin  it. 
The  intuition  can  not  construct,  but  only  immediately  be- 
hold what  may  be  constructed.  The  same  intellectual  agent 
as  productive  imagination  before  noticed,  but  in  a  somewhat 
modified  view  of  the  agency,  must  construct  the  real  form 
as  pure  period  within  the  primitive  intuition.  As  time  is 
the  primitive  intuition  for  the  internal  sense,  and  all  deter- 
mination of  succession  in  time  rests  upon  the  determination 
of  changes  in  the  inner  state,  so  all  construction  of  period 
must  demand  that  the  inner  state  be,  in  some  way,  continu- 
ously modified  in  its  affection.  And  that  this  modified 
affection,  as  change  of  the  inner  state  may  be  determined,  it 


96  THESENSEIXITSIDEA. 

must  be  made  to  stand  in  a  relationship  in  the  intuition  to 
some  jjermanent.  Mere  movement  can  not  determine  suc- 
cession, Init  only  movement  in  reference  to  somewhat  that  is 
permanent ;  and  as  the  period  to  be  constructed  is  pure,  so 
the  permanent  must  be  in  the  pure  intuition  also.  And 
T.  ow,  all  the  above  requisites  may  be  attained  in  the  follow- 
ing way,  and  are  wholly  impracticable  in  any  other  manner. 
Let  the  intellectual  agency  be  conceived  as  moving  along 
a  pure  line  in  space.  This  line  is  itself  a  permanent  in  the 
intuition,  and  every  pomt  in  the  Hne  is  a  permanent,  and  as 
the  intellectual  agency  passes  along  the  line  wdthin  the  im- 
mediate field  of  the  intuition,  the  movement  as  change  of 
place  gives  continuous  modification  to  the  inner  state,  and 
this  succession  of  affection  in  the  internal  sense  is  the  deter- 
mination that  a  time  is  passing.  The  movement  is  that  which 
is  here  alone  regarded,  and  not  the  line  as  product  of  the 
movement.  This  intellectual  agency  is  commenced  at  a 
given  point  in  the  line,  and  at  that  given  point  the  affection 
in  the  inner  state  begins,  and  as  the  movement  passes  on- 
Vv'ard  the  inner  state  is  continuously  modified,  until  at  length 
the  movement  terminates  in  another  point  in  the  line  and 
the  modification  in  the  inner  state  ceases.  At  each  contigu- 
ci's  pcint  in  the  line  there  has  been  a  coincident  modification 
of  the  inner  state,  as  tlie  intellectual  movement  passed  along 
fi'om  instant  to  instant  in  the  intuition,  and  in  each  modifica- 
tion of  the  inner  state  a  moment  of  time  has  passed,  and 
thus  successively  from  the  commencement  to  the  termina- 
tion of  the  moving  agency,  and  thereby  a  definite  period  has 
been  constructed,  in  ^vhich  the  instants  have  been  conjoined 
in  unity  by  the  movement  and  limited  on  each  side  as  a 
complete  whole. 


CONSTEUCTION     OF    FOEM.  97 

This  is  more  than  mere  diversity  in  the  primitive  intui- 
tion of  time,  since  a  real  conj  miction  of  the  diverse  instants 
has  been  effected  and  a  completed  limit  set  to  it,  and  thus  a 
real  form  produced ;  but  inasmuch  as  there  is  no  content  of 
the  sensibility  it  is  pure  object  only,  and  existing  merely  in 
the  subjective  intuition.  And  here,  it  is  plain,  that  nothing 
hinders  the  construction  of  all  possible  periods  that  may  be 
in  time,  of  all  possible  varieties  of  duration.  The  primitive 
intuition  gives  the  diversity  of  time  in  its  indefiniteness,  and 
the  productive  imagination  may  move  on  in  any  extension 
of  a  line  of  instants  and  give  its  modifications  to  the  inner 
state,  and  thereby  its  definite  succession  of  moments,  and  in 
this  way  its  pure  periods  as  real  forms  in  time  to  any  possi- 
ble degree  that  such  pure  periods  can  be  in  time.  And  as 
all  possible  periods  may  be  so  constructed,  so  also  it  is  an  a 
priori  cognition  that  if  any  is  constructed  at  all  it  must  be 
in  this  manner.  The  primitive  intuition  can  not  construct, 
but  an  agency  must  move  within  it,  and  conjoin  what  is 
diverse  in  its  manifoldness  into  one  completed  product,  and 
which  may  thus  be  intuitively  seen  in  its  definiteness,  and  its 
distinctness  from  all  other  constructed  periods. 

With  pure  space  and  time  in  the  primitive  intuition 
open  to  an  intellectual  constructing  agency,  all  possible  fig- 
ures in  space  and  periods  in  tune  may  become  pure  objects 
in  the  subjective  intuition.  And  this  is  the  only  possible 
method  of  attaining  real  forms  from  the  primitive  intuition 
I  can  have  no  line  in  pure  space,  except  as  by  my  construe 
tive  agency  I  draw  the  line ;  and  no  other  figure  in  pure 
space,  except  as  through  the  same  agency  I  des'C.rihe  that 
figure ;  nor  can  I  have  any  period  in  pure  thne,  except  as 
through  an  intellectual  agency  I  successively  affect  my  inner 

5 


98  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

state,  and  in  the  conjunction  of  the  instants  construct  the 
period.  In  this  manner  may  all  possible  real  forms  in  pure 
space  and  time  be  given  in  a  pure  intuition,  but  in  no  other 
manner  can  any  real  form  be  effected.  We  have  thus  a  con- 
ditioning principle,  rationally  determined,  that  all  possible 
pure  objects  in  space  and  time  iniist  be  constructed  by  an 
mtellectual  agency. 

Let  it  here  be  noted  that  pure  space  and  time  in  the 
primitive  intuition  oifer  nothing  to  invite,  to  guide  or  to  hin- 
der an  intellectual  constructing  agency.  In  the  spontaneity 
of  the  productive  imagination,  all  possible  real  forms  may 
be  thus  given.  This  result  being  attained  it  is  demanded 
that  its  process  be  subjected  to  a  much  deeper  analysis,  and 
hi  which  many  points  of  difficult  explanation  must  be  care- 
fully examined.     To  this  we  proceed  in  the  next  section. 


SECTION    III. 

THE   PRIMITIVE   ELEMENTS    OF   ALL   POSSIBLE   FORMS   IN  PURE 
SPACE    AND    TIME. 

The  diversity  of  points  in  space  and  of  instants  in  time 
as  given  in  the  primitive  intuition  is  wholly  subjective,  and 
lying  for  each  one  in  his  inner  consciousness.  The  intellect- 
ual agency  moves  for  each  within  the  same  inner  conscious 
ness  subjectively,  and  thus  both  the  primitive  intuition  of 
space  and  time  and  the  constructing  intellectual  agency  are 
conditional  for  the  completion  of  all  real  forms,  and  witliout 
both  of  which  no  fliculty  of  sense,  or  function  for  appre- 
liending  phenomena,  could  be.     The  subjective  pure  form 


PEIJITTIVE    ELEMENTS    OF    CONJUNCTION 


and  the  objective  empirical  content  must  alike  stand  con- 
structed in  consciousness,  and  the  elements  in  one  will  be 
the  elements  in  both. 

In  attaining  these  primitive  elements  for  constructing 
forms  we  shall  be  able  to  determine  for  them  that  they  must 
he,  and  that  so  many  must  be,  and  thus  both  their  necessity 
and  completeness.  There  must  be  the  Primitive  IntelleO' 
tual  Ope)xition,  and  this  must  have  its  specific  Primitive 
Elements,  and  which  we  here  j^i'oceed  to  attain. 

We  have  already  examined  the  general  process  for  the 
possibility  of  real  form  in  pure  space  and  time,  and  found 
that  as  the  primitive  intuition  does  not  construct,  an  intel- 
lectual agency  must  construct  the  pure  object.  This  is  done 
by  conjoining  that  which  Avas  before  diverse  and  unlimited 
in  the  primitive  intuition,  and  bringing  it  by  this  agency 
into  a  completed  and  defined  pure  object.  Thus  all  figures 
in  space  and  all  periods  in  time  may  be  constructed.  This, 
then,  is  the  intellectual  operation  to  be  here  specially  con- 
sidered, that  we  may  attain  the  a  priori  elements  which 
enter  into  the  process.  It  is  properly  a  constructing  agency, 
and  as  this  is  eflected  by  conjoining  what  before  was  uncon- 
joined  or  diverse,  it  is  the  work  of  conjunction  that  we 
are  to  examine,  and  see  what  are  the  elements  conditional 
for  it.  What  are  the  primitive  elements  in  the  operation  of 
conjunction  f 

1.  Li  the  primitive  intuition  of  pure  space  and  time 
nothing  is  conjoined,  and  thus  no  product  can  be  cognized 
because  nothing  is  produced.  Such  possible  product  is  the 
result  of  a  constructive  agency,  and  this  must  be  eifected 
by  conjunction.  And  now,  what  must  be  the  first  element 
in  the  a  priori  operation  of  conjunction  ?    This  may  be 


loo  THESENSEINTTSIDEA. 

determined  by  an  immediate  beholding  in  pure  space  and 
time. 

The  intellectual  agency  in  conjunction  must  not  merely 
move  withiii  the  primitive  intuition.  If  there  were  only  a 
mere  passing  in  pure  space  and  time  no  result  could  remain, 
for  no  Hne  as  its  pathway  would  be  left  by  the  movement. 
It  would  be  a  mere  passing  through  the  void  intuition, 
leaving  it  still  to  be  void,  when  the  movement  had  wholly 
transpired.  It  must,  then,  be  an  agency  which  can  take 
up  and  collect  within  itself  this  diversity  in  the  primitive 
intuition  as  it  passes  along  through  it.  One  point  in  pure 
space  assumed  as  a  position,  and  made  the  starting-point 
or  commencing  limit  of  the  movement,  must  not  be  left 
as  it  was  before  it  had  been  so  assumed,  but  must  be  con- 
joined to  the  point  next  assumed  as  position,  and  this  also 
to  another,  and  thus  onward  to  the  point  which  becomes 
the  terminating  limit  of  the  intellectual  movement.  If  I 
take  up  any  number  of  diverse  objects  one  by  one,  and 
throw  away  the  first  when  I  take  the  next,  no  possible 
accumulation  can  result,  because  no  product  can  be  thus 
generated.  Merely  to  repeat  one,  one,  one,  would  not  be  to 
count ;  but  that  any  number  should  be  generated  in  the  pro- 
cess, the  first  one  must  be  retained  and  conjoined  with  the 
succeeding  one,  and  thus  conjoined  they  are  no  longer 
diverse  as  one,  one,  but  the  first  is  produced  into  the  second 
making  them  together  to  be  two,  and  this  product  of  two 
is  then  produced  into  the  next  one,  making  all  together  to 
be  three,  and  thus  onward  through  all  the  progressing 
agency  until  it  terminates.  So  in  the  diversity  given  in 
pure  space  and  time,  the  agency  must  collect  and  conjoin 
within  itself  in  its  own  movement  the  diverse   points  in 


PRIMITIVE   ELEMENTS    OF    CONJUNCTION.    101 

5pace  or  instants  in  time,  and  in  this  conjunction  only  can 
there  be  product  as  a  line  or  a  succession.  The  agency  col- 
lects  within  itself  what  it  takes  up  in  passing,  and  thus  only 
is  it  iiitelligent  agency. 

And  now,  as  this  may  be  to  any  degree  possible  in  pure 
space  and  time,  and  for  any  possible  amount  and  modifica- 
tion of  figure  and  period,  so  also  thus  it  must  be  for  any 
and  every  figure  or  period  that  shall  become  product  there- 
in.  Such  a  conjunction  of  what  is  diverse  in  the  primitive 
intuition  is  a  universal  necessity  for  all  possible  product  in 
space  and  time,  and  is  hence  an  a  priori  cognition.  All 
possible  experience  must  be  regulated  by  it,  and  conform  to 
it.  But  this  conjoining  process  is  a  strictly  uniting  process 
— it  unifies  the  diverse  as  given  in  the  primitive  intuition, 
and  thus  pure  space  and  time  remain  no  longer  a  diversity 
but  a  unity  where  this  intellectual  agency  has  passed,  and 
only  where  it  has  passed.-  In  the  passing  it  has  collected 
jito  itself  and  thereby  united  what  it  has  taken  up,  and  all 
this  is  done  in  the  immediate  intuition  and  is  thus  directly 
beheld.  It  needs  no  demonstration,  it  is  already  intuition. 
The  first  element,  therefore,  in  all  processes  of  conjunction 
and  thus  in  all  products  as  real  forms  in  space  and  time,  as 
found  by  an  a  priori  cognition,  is  Unity. 

2.  As  this  conjoining  process  goes  on,  that  Avhich  it  has 
taken  up  and  gathered  within  itself,  being  no  longer  diverse 
but  conjoined,  becomes  a  collection  or  synthesis,  ^.  6.,  a 
diversity  in  unity — and  which  is  the  precise  conception  of  a 
multiplicity.  A  number  of  diverse  points  m  space,  merely 
as  they  stand  in  their  diversity,  may  be  said  to  be  many 
(multi),  inasmuch  as  it  is  possible  they  may  be  conjoined  ; 
but  it  is  by  their  conjunction,  or   implication  one  in  an- 


102  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

other,  as  the  product  of  an  intellectual  agency,  that  we 
come  to  the  cognition  that  it  is  other  than  niany^  it  is  the 
many  united  (multi  implicit!).  As  the  least  that  is  possi- 
ble in  the  conception  of  unity  is  that  of  one  conjoined  to 
one  (unus  et  plus),  which  is  plurality ;  and  this  admits  of 
*iny  possible  increase  (unus  et  plus,  duo  et  plus,  trcs  et  plus, 
etc.),  and  is  still  plurality ;  this  expresses  the  conception 
more  completeh  than  multipHcty.  It  is  so  many  and  morey 
•and  thus  though  a  unity  yet  an  incomplete  process  with  still  • 
the  agency  going  on  in  its  work  of  conjunction.  Such,  it  is 
a  priori  seen,  must  be  true  in  all  construction  of  real  forms 
in  pure  space  and  time.  The  agency  must  cammence  with 
a  jDosition  as  a  starting-point,  and  move  to  another  position 
conjoining  it  to  the  first,  and  in  this  is  unity  y  and  as  it  is 
one  and  more  (unus  et  plus),  and  as  yet  indeterminate  how 
much  more,  inasmuch  as  the  uniting  process  is  not  yet  com- 
pleted, it  must  be  a  plurality.  All  conjunction  must  stand 
thus  in  the  pure  intuition,  as  a  begun  but  incomplete  pro- 
duct so  long  as  the  agency  is  in  progress,  and  thus  having 
within  itself  the  element  of  ^Plurality. 

3.  The  unity  in  a  pluraUty,  though  a  condition  for  all 
real  form  in  pure  space  and  time,  yet  is  not  all  that  is  condi- 
tional. The  diversity  in  the  primitive  intuition  is  not  there- 
by a  unit,  though  in  unity.  The  terminating  limit  is  not  yet 
given,  and  thus  it  can  not  be  said  yet  what  the  completed 
real  form  shall  be.  It  is  in  the  process  of  construction,  but 
all  possible  form  yet  beyond  what  has  been  constructed  still 
remains  in  the  primitive  intuition,  and  thus  open  to  the  con- 
structing intellectual  agency,  and  thereby  forbidding  that 
we  should  say  more  than  that  there  is  the  unity  in  a  plural- 
ity.    There  must  come  the  termination  of  the  agency,  and 


PRIMITIVE   ELEMENTS    OF    CONJUNCTION.    103 

the  intellect  must  cease  to  collect  any  more  of  the  diversity 
into  itself,  and  thereby  affix  a  terminating  limit  to  the  con- 
junctiun,  and  thus  define  what  has  been  united  on  all  sides, 
anvl  then  first  arises  a  completed  pure  object  as  entire  pro- 
duct in  space  and  time.  This  unity  in  the  plurahty  com- 
pleted, becomes  then  a  whole,  cutting  itself  off  from  all 
that  is  not  included  within  its  own  circumscription,  and 
standing  out  in  the  pure  intuition  as  a  real  form,  definite  in 
its  own  constructed  totality.  All  real  form  must  possess  a 
total  of  the  plurahty  in  unity,  and  thus  a  third  primitive 
element  is  Totality, 

It  is  now  manifest  that  while  no  real  form  in  space  and 
time  can  possess  less  than  the  elements  of  unity ^  plurality^ 
and  totality  •  so  likewise  can  no  pure  object  possess  more 
than  these  three  primitive  elements.  The  whole  process  of 
construction,  for  either  figure  in  space  or  period  in  time,  as 
the  intellectual  agency  enters  upon  it  and  goes  on  to  its  com- 
pletion, can  demand  nothing  less  nor  more,  than  that  it  take 
up  the  diverse,  and  give  unity  in  a  plurality  which  shall  ulti- 
mately possess  totality.  Here,  therefore,  are  all  the  possible 
elements  of  all  possible  conjunction  in  jjure  space  and  time. 

Xow  of  all  possible  real  form  thus  constructed  in  pure 
space  and  time,  whether  it  be  that  of  figure  or  period,  we 
may  say  that  it  possesses  a  Quantity.  Quantity  is  thus  the 
general  term  which  is  to  express  all  possible  real  form  in 
pure  space  and  time ;  and  of  all  possible  quantity  there  may 
be  a  priori  predicated  of  it,  that  it  must  possess  unity,  plu- 
rality, and  totality.  It  can  not  possibly  be  made  intelligible, 
except  all  the  three  primitive  predicates,  as  above,  belong  to 
it.  In  the  jirocess  above  pursued,  we  may  see  not  only  that 
our  faculty  of  judgment  lias  so  many  forms,  giving  so  many 


]04  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

primitive  conceptions :  but  why  it  has,  viz.,  that  a  rational 
cognition  in  pure  space  and  time,  through  a  direct  intuition, 
determines  that  all  possible  intellectual  construction  of  quan- 
tity must  have  so  many  and  no  more  elements.  It  is  not 
possible  that  any  intellect  should  give  quantity  in  pure  sj^ace 
and  time  in  any  other  process  or  through  any  other  elemen- 
tary conditions.  All  possible  experience  of  shapes  in  space 
and  successions  in  time  must  conform  thereto,  and  so  far 
from  attaining  them  by  an  analysis  of  any  of  our  intellec- 
tual functions,  we  determine  them  to  be  universally  neces- 
sary for  all  intellectual  construction  of  objects  in  conscious- 
ness. 

We  have  in  the  above,  attained  all  that  is  necessary  in 
the  determination  of  the  process  of  conjunction  and  of  the 
result  in  a  definite  and  completed  form  as  quantity.  But  a 
work  equally  as  necessary  and  quite  as  abstruse  yet  remains 
to  be  accomplished,  viz. :  What  is  conditional  for  the  intel- 
lectual agency  that  it  may  be  competent  to  such  a  conjoining 
operation  ?  Except  as  this  inquiry  shall  receive  a  satisfac- 
tory answer,  Ave  have  brought  the  subject  of  Rational  Psy- 
chology through  but  half  its  difficult  way  to  the  attainment 
of  the  sense  in  its  subjective  idea,  as  necessary  to  be  acquired 
under  the  first  division  of  the  intuition.  This,  then,  will 
form  the  subject  of  another  section,  the  determination  a 
priori  of  what  is  necessary  in  the  intellect^  in  order  that  it 
may  operate  such  results  in  the  product  of  a  coinpleted  pure 
quantity. 


THE   UNITY   OF   SELF-CONSCIOITSNESS.         106 


SECTION    IV. 

THE    UNITY    OF    S  E  L  F  -  C  O  N  S  C  I  O  U  S  N  E  S  S  . 

Ihe  Unity  found  as  a  first  element  in  the  operation  of 
conju lection,  and  which  is  conditional  for  the  production  of 
all  quantity,  is  itself  also  a  product.  The  collecting  into 
itself  the  diverse  points  and  instants  in  pure  space  and  time, 
as  its  agency  passes  over  the  primitive  intuition,  is  the  pecu- 
liar Avork  of  the  intellect,  and  such  collection  into  itself 
becomes  a  conjunction  in  unity,  whereby  a  quantity  is  first 
generated  in  the  intuition.  Such  unity  can  be  no  product 
of  the  primitive  intuition,  but  only  of  a  constructing  agency 
which  performs  its  work  within  it,  thereby  giving  real  form 
within  pure  space  and  time.  But  what  is  conditional  in  this 
intellectual  agency  itself^  that  it  may  be  competent  to  such 
a  work  of  conjoining  a  diversity  in  unity  ? 

It  is  manifest  that  if  such  agency  were  in  itself  diverse, 
and  its  movement  a  repetition  of  single  and  disjoined  acts, 
that  it  could  make  no  collection,  and  effect  no  conjunction, 
and  thus  could  produce  no  unity  in  the  primitive  intuition. 
An  agency  which  was  as  manifold  as  the  diverse  points  and 
instants  in  pure  space  and  time,  and  thus  only  an  act  in  its 
own  point  or  instant,  would  possess  no  capacity  for  passing 
over  from  one  point  or  instant  to  another,  and  collecting 
them  continuously  into  a  quantity.  The  agency  must,  there- 
fore, itself  possess  a  higher  unity  than  that  which  it  pro- 
duces in  pure  space  and  time  ;  and  it  is  only  this  possession 
of  the  higher  unity  that  can  make  the  unity  in  the  conjunc- 
tion as  product  to  be  possible.     And  now,  the  demand  is, 

6* 


106  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

that  we  attain  as  an  d  priori  cognition,  Avhat  is  conditional 
for  this  higher  mii^y  of  the  intellectual  agency. 

1.  It  must  be  competent  to  more  than  the  simple  act. — ^ 
In  order  to  any  conjunction  in  unity  there  must  be  perpetu- 
ated movement ;  but  the  simple  act  can  effect  no  movement. 
If  it  were  a  constant  repetition  of  itself,  it  would  still  i-esult 
11  no  movement.     It  would  be  merely  an  act  in  one  point, 
and  a  repetition  of  the  act  in  another  point,  and  thus  only 
an  alternating  agency  and  not  a  moving  agency.     It  would 
be  simply  origination  and  extinction  in  the  same  point,  and 
this  repeated  in  any  diversity  of  points  could  not  conjoin  them. 
The  oscillations  of  any  number   of  pendulums  in  diverse 
spaces  occurring  in  alternation,  can  not  conjoin  those  spaces, 
inasmuch  as  the  agency  arises  and  finishes  in  its  own  space, 
and   does  not  pass  on  to  collect  into  itself  that   which  is 
diverse  from  its  own.     As  simple  act,  however  perpetually 
repeated  and  in  whatever  diversity,  can  not  be  a  movement 
through  the  diversity,  it  can  not,  therefore,  produce  any  con- 
junction  in  unity.     In  order  to  this  it  must  be  a  perpetu- 
ated agency,  and  though  successive  in  the  diverse  points 
and  instants  yet  itself  in  unity  through  the  whole  operation. 
In  this  manner  only  can  the  agency  conjoin  that  which  is 
diverse  through  which  it  passes,  and  construct  a  real  form 
as  product  of  its  movement,  and  leave  it  as  a  result  within  a 
pure  intuition.     We  will  call  this  condition — The  Unity  of 
the  conjoining  agency. 

2.  There  must  he  more  than  the  unity  of  conjoining 
agency. — An  agency  in  unity  throughout,  moving  through 
the  diverse  points  and  instants  in  pure  space  and  time,  and 
performing  its  work  in  conjoining  the  diverse  points  and 
instants  in  unity,  could  not  yet  accomplish  anything  toward 


UNITY    OF    SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.  107 

gi\ing  its  products  as  real  forms  to  the  apprehension,  when 
the  operation  went  on  in  darkness.  A  mere  bhnd  move- 
ment could  make  no  product  to  appear,  and  hence  its  whole 
work  would  yet  be  as  nothing.  The  perpetuated  move- 
ment must  be  itself  in  the  light,  and  the  whole  process  of 
conjunction  go  on  in  the  Hght,  and  thereby  its  product  be 
put  altogether  in  the  light,  or  the  whole  movement  of  the 
agency  must  be  in  vain,  and  its  results  hidden  from  all  pos- 
sibihty  of  a  revelation. 

And  here  Ave  must  determme  what  Consciousness  is  to 
subserve,  in  this  process,  toward  the  apprehension  of  the 
pure  object;  for  this  light  of  which  we  are  here  speaking  is 
the  very  thing  we  mean  by  consciousness.  This  has  cer- 
tainly been  very  variously  described,  doubtless  very  differ- 
ently conceived,  and  not  seldom  very  much  misconceived. 
If  we  will  allow  the  conception  to  fashion  itself  under  the 
analogies  of  an  inward  illumination  rather  than  as  an  agent, 
or  any  faculty  of  an  agent,  or  any  act  of  such  faculty,  we 
shall  come  the  nearest  to  the  reality.  When  the  spontane- 
ous agency  of  the  intellect,  as  productive  imagination,  has 
conjoined  the  diversity  in  the  primitive  intuition  m  unity, 
and  thereby  constructed  the  pure  form  as  its  product,  no 
further  action  is  necessary  to  be  supposed.  The  whole  pro- 
cess of  the  construction,  and  the  completed  product,  all 
stand  out  in  the  mind's  own  hght,  and  such  illumination  will 
be  available  to  reveal  what  has  been  done,  and  to  show  the 
l)roduct.  The  pure  object  is  put  within  this  hght,  and  thus 
the  mind  possesses  it  in  its  own  illumination,  and  this  is  the 
same  as  to  say  that  the  object  stands  in  consciousness.  Not 
as  an  act,  but  as  a  light ;  not  as  a  maker — for  that  is  the 
province  of  the  intellectual   agency — but  rather   as   a  re- 


i.08  THE     SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

vealer :  after  such  analogies  shall  we  doubtless  best  con- 
ceive of  consciousness,  and  which  may  thus  be  termed  "  the 
Ught  of  all  our  seeing."  In  this  conception,  the  difficulty 
of  cognizing  consciousness  and  determining  precisely  and 
affirmatively  what  it  is,  becomes  very  obvious.  It  may  be 
competent  to  evince  for  itself  that  it  is,  while  it  is  not  com- 
petent that  it  should  give  any  representation  of  itself  deter- 
mining what  it  is.  AH  the  intellectual  constructions  as  pro- 
ducts appear  in  consciousness,  but  we  have  no  circumscrib- 
ing agency  and  hght  out  of  consciousness,  by  which  con- 
sciousness may  itself  be  made  to  appear.  It  is  that  inward 
illumination  in  which  all  that  is  therein  constructed  may 
appear,  while  itself  is  a  light  too  pure  and  transparent  to 
admit  that  it  should  be  seen. 

And  further,  with  this  conception  of  consciousness,  it  is 
also  manifest  that  it  must  possess  unity.  Were  the  con- 
joining operation  to  be  at  this  point  or  instant  in  one  light 
of  a  consciousness,  and  in  a  diverse  pouit  or  instant  in  an- 
other light  of  a  consciousness,  the  former  manifestation 
would  be  separate  from  the  latter,  and  no  perpetuated  ap- 
pearance of  a  pure  form  could  be  effected.  There  would  be 
a  separate  revealing  for  each  moment  of  the  constructing 
agency,  and  in  this  way  only  a  flashing  and  extinction  of 
light  which  would  be  a  diverse  consciousness  for  each  point 
or  instant  of  space  and  time,  and  in  this  conception,  no  con- 
tinuity of  process  nor  perpetuity  of  appearance  Avould  be 
possible.  The  light  of  consciousness  in  which  the  conjunc- 
tion is  effected  must  be  throughout  in  unity  or  neither  the 
construction  nor  the  apprehension  can  be  completed. 

And  here,  let  us  go  back  to  our  first  a  priori  position  in 
the  primitive  intuition.     When  we  made  abstraction  of  all 


UNITY    OF    SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.  100 

that  had  been  given  in  the  sensibility,  and  thus  left  the  real 
form  of  the  phenomenon ;  and  then  made  abstraction  of  the 
real  form  as  definite  figure  or  period,  and  also  took  away  all 
connection  of  the  diverse  points  and  instants,  and  thus  left 
the  primitive  form  of  space  and  time  in  their  limitless  and 
unconstructed  diversity ;  we  did  not  extinguish  any  light  in 
which  either  the  phenomenon,  or  the  real  form,  or  the  con- 
nected diversity  had  appeared.  That  hght  still  remains  and 
gives  us  the  limitless  diversity  of  pure  space  and  time,  which 
no  abstraction  can  remove.  It  is  now,  it  is  true,  wholly 
subjective,  and  exists  in  the  primitive  intuition  only,  and  so 
far  has  significancy  only  for  that  mind  within  which  the 
primitive  intuition  is  ;  but  it  is  there  as  a  Hght  revealing  a 
pure  diversity,  in  which  nothing  is  needed  but  new  con- 
structions to  be  given,  and  real  forms  and  phenomenal  con- 
tent again  appear.  This  light  of  the  primitive  intuition  is 
essentially  one  in  its  own  unity,  for  it  has  the  limitless  diver- 
sity of  space  and  time  beneath  it,  and  all  agency  that  may 
operate  to  conjoin,  and  all  products  that  may  be  conjoined 
in  pure  space  and  time,  must  be  illuminated  and  revealed 
thereby.  That  original  faculty  of  the  primitive  intuition, 
which  is  when  all  that  has  been  given  to  it  has  been  taken 
from  it — which  must  a  priori  have  been  in  order  to  that  ex- 
perience of  the  phenomenal  which  w^as  abstracted  from  it — 
that,  essentially,  is  in  the  subjective  being,  as  conditional 
for  the  possibility  of  apprehending  any  thing  which  the  pro- 
ductive imagination  m.ay  construct,  or  the  aifection  in  the 
sensibility  may  present,  for  phenomena.  This  one  illumina- 
tion, which  as  primitive  intuition  gives  pure  space  and  time, 
as  pure  intuition  gives  all  real  forms  constructed,  and  as 
empirical  intuition  gives  all  that  is  phenomenal,  is  the  one 


110  THE     SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

constant  and  perj^etual  light  of  consciousness  revealing  all 
that  in  any  way  is  put  within  it.  And  this  self-sameness  of 
light,  in  which  all  that  may  be  constructed  must  appear,  wo 
will  term — the  Unity  of  consciousness. 

3.  There  must  he  more  than  the  unity  of  the  conjoining 
agency  and  the  unity  of  consciousness. — Were  the  agency  to 
he  in  unity,  and  the  consciousness  also  in  unity,  yet  if  the 
agency  and  the  consciousness  were  diverse  the  product  con- 
structed by  the  intellect  could  not  appear  in  the  conscious- 
ness. The  agency  might  conjoin,  but  it  would  be  in  dark- 
ness ;  and  the  consciousness  might  stand  as  a  light,  but  it 
would  possess  nothing  that  might  appear.  The  intellect 
would  act  with  its  back  to  the  mirror,  the  mirror  would  be 
incompetent  to  envisage  for  itself  the  products  in  the  plane 
of  its  own  surface.  Both  the  agency  constructing  and  the 
consciousness  revealing  must  be  in  unity,  and  thus  what  the 
irtellect  constructs  that  also  the  consciousness  reveals  in  the 
same  subject. 

And  this  unity  of  intellectual  action  and  conscious  reveal 
ing  is  not  only  necessary  as  condition  that  the  construction 
and  the  revelation  may  be  given  in  one  subject,  but  also 
necessary  that  there  should  be  any  intellectual  construction 
at  all.  The  primitive  intuition  of  pure  space  and  time  must 
give  all  diversity  in  which  the  conjunction  of  real  forms  can 
be  eifected,  and  therefore,  to  the  productive  imagination,  it 
were  impossible  that  any  pure  object  should  be  attaine 
except  as  constructed  in  that  diversity  which  is  in  unity 
with  itself,  inasmuch  as  otherwise  there  can  be  no  pure  form 
within  which  it  might  construct  the  real  form.  The  same 
light  of  an  intuition,  which  gives  the  diverse  points  and 
instants  in  the  pure  space  and  time,  must  also  give  the  con- 


UNITY     OF    SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.  Ill 

btructing  agency  through  all  its  process  of  conjoining,  and 
also  give  its  product  as  comj^leted  pure  object. 

And  here,  this  one  subject,  in  which  is  the  unity  of  both 
constructing  agency  and  revealing  consciousness,  may  be 
termed  the  self ;  and  thus  this  unity  of  agency  and  of  envis- 
agement  will  be  a  unity  in  the  self,  and  may  be  termed — the 
Unity  of  se!fco?isciousness. 

In  order  to  the  possibility  of  a  conjunction  in  unity  of 
tliat  which  is  diverse  in  the  primitive  intuition  of  pure  space 
and  time,  and  thus  in  order  to  any  possible  apprehension  of 
quantity,  the  unity  of  self-consciousness  is  necessary ;  and  in 
which  is  comprehended  the  unity  of  the  agency,  the  unity 
of  the  consciousness,  and  the  unity  of  both  in  the  same  sub- 
ject as  a  self.  It  might  here  be  competent,  perhaps,  to  push 
the  a  jyriori  analysis  of  conjunction  into  another  department 
higher  up,  and  investigate  what  are  the  primitive  types  con- 
ditioninty  all  constructions  of  reorular  forms  from  the  diver- 
sity  in  the  primitive  intuition,  and  what  thus  would  give  an 
d  priori  scheme^  as  it  were,  for  the  regulation  of  the  intel- 
lect, as  productive  imagination,  in  constructing  its  diagrams 
as  pm-e  objects  in  space  and  time,  and  thereby  the  more 
effectually  determine  Avhat  the  imagination  must  be  in  its 
primitive  sources  ;  but  for  all  the  purposes  of  attaining  to 
the  sense  in  its  subjective  idea  in  the  pure  intuition,  the 
diversity  given  in  the  points  and  instants  of  pure  space  and 
time  as  wholly  unconjoined  and  limitless,  and  yet  which  may 
be  conjoined  and  limited  in  all  possible  figures  and  periods, 
is  in  itself  sufficient ;  for  it  enables  us  to  give  an  a  priori 
examination  of  the  whole  process  of  conjunction,  both  in 
what  is  conditional  in  the  result  itself  as  quantity,  and  in 
the  constructing  and  revealing  agency  as  self-consciousness 


112  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

It  should  furtlier,  as  a  caution,  be  here  added,  that  not 
the  intellectual  agency  is  self,  nor  the  revealing  conscious- 
ness is  self,  but  their  unity  is  in  that  which  we  here  terra 
the  self.  We  are  not  here  in  a  condition  to  investigate  any 
thing  at  all  relatively  to  a  common  subject  for  the  agency 
and  the  light  in  which  the  constructed  product  appears. 
This  belongs  wholly  to  the  next  part  in  the  faculty  of  the 
understanding.  This  much  only  is  it  here  necessary  to 
determine,  that  for  the  possibility  of  all  conjunction  as  giv- 
ing a  quantity  in  space  and  time,  the  agency  conjoining  and 
the  consciousness  revealing  must  stand  together  in  unity, 
and  which  we  term  the  unity  of  se{/*-consciousness,  though 
we  do  not  here  determine  any  thing  about  this  self^  as  com- 
mon subject  for  the  imagination  and  the  intuition,  the  con- 
structing agency  and  the  envisaging  consciousness. 

From  the  progress  we  have  now  made,  and  the  position 
to  which  we  have  here  attained,  in  the  rational  cognition  of 
self-consciousness,  it  is  competent  to  answer  several  queries, 
and  settle  some  important  doubtful  matters,,  in  reference  to 
the  process  of  perception ;  and  which,  except  for  such  an 
a  priori  investigation,  must  hereafter  be  as  they  have  here- 
tofore been,  inexplicable  mysteries.  We  will  here  indicate 
the  questions  and  their  solution  in  a  cursory  manner. 

Thus,  it  is  quite  explicable  why  the  constructed  product 
should  become  an  object. — The  constructing  agency  has  put 
limits,  and  thus  given  definite  outline,  to  what  is  now  a  pre- 
cise quantity  in  pure  space  and  time,  and  thus  space  and 
time  are  no  longer  void,  unconjoined,  and  limitless,  but 
possess  a  completed  form  as  figure  or  period,  and  this 
directly  within  the  intuition  as  having  its  unity  in  a  self. 
This   definite  form  is   thus   thrown   face  to  face,   directly 


UNITY    OF    SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.  llfi 

before  the  self  in  its  intuition,  and  is  thus  an  object  to  the 
appreliension  (obvius  jaciens).  The  object,  as  joz^re,  is  m 
the  imagination  only,  and  thus  wholly  subjective  and  that 
which  seems  ;  but  still  a  real  form  for  any  possible  content 
that  might  be  given  in  the  sensibility,  and  when  filled  by 
such  content  as  its  matter,  becomes  phenomenon  as  per- 
ceived object,  and  which  then  aj^iMars. 

And  further,  it  may  be  manifest  how  this  is  my  object. 
The  constructing  agency  and  the  light  in  which  it  is  revealed 
have  their  unity  in  my  self,  and  hence  both  the  conjunction 
and  the  envisaging  are  m^/^e  /  and  as  in  this  process  the 
product  is  given  and  apprehended  as  object,  it  becomes  both 
an  object  to  me  inasmuch  as  it  is  thrown  before  me,  and  my 
object  inasmuch  as  it  is  my  construction  and  ony  presenta- 
tion. I  myself  can  haA^e  no  pure  object  which  I  do  not  by 
iny  productive  imagination  construct,  and  which  also  I  do 
aot  construct  in  my  consciousness ;  and  both  because  I  my- 
self construct,  and  I  myself  envisage,  it  becomes  that  I  my- 
self have  a  pure  object. 

It  is  also  manifest  why  pure  objects  in  space  and  time 
must  be  wholly  incommunicdble. — The  primitive  intuition  is 
wholly  subjective;  the  conjoining  and  the  envisaging  are 
both  also  wholly  subjective;  and  thus  the  pure  object  is 
object  only  in  my  subject.  The  line  I  draw,  the  circle  or 
other  figure  I  describe,  the  period  which  I  limit,  become 
pure  objects  only  to  me,  and  can  not  themselves  be  communi- 
cated to  any  other  subject.  The  communication  can  only 
be  by  symbols,  and  inducing  that  the  agency  and  light  in 
unity  in  a  diverse  self  should  construct  and  reveal  similar 
pure  objects,  in  his  subjective  apprehension.  The  possibility 
of  the  communing  in.  my  pure  objects  by  another  subject 


114  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

would  demand  that  this  diverse  subject  should  be  competent 
to  envisage  the  self  in  wliich  is  my  imagination  and  my  con- 
sciousness united ;  and  then,  such  other  self  could  "  search 
my  heart,  and  try  my  reins."  As  if  tw :)  mirrors  were  self 
conscious,  they  could  only  subjectively  envisage  without  the 
possibility  of  communication  among  themselves,  but  the  self 
which  might  envisage  them,  could  well  see  all  that  was  in 
them. 

We  may  further  learn  why  the  self  can  not  become  object 
to  itself. — Only  that  which  may  be  constructed  in  the  primi- 
tive intuition  of  pure  space  and  time  can  become  object. 
The  agency  as  process  of  conjoining  may  go  on  within  the 
primitive  intuition,  and  the  pure  product  as  quantity  con- 
structed may  also  stand  out  in  the  consciousness ;  but  the 
self  in  which  the  conjoining  agency  and  revealing  conscious- 
ness have  their  unity  must  of  course  lie  back  of  the  primi- 
tive intuition,  and  can  not  be  brought  by  any  construction 
within  any  of  the  conjunctions  that  its  diverse  points  and 
instants  may  receive.  The  primitive  forms  of  space  and 
time  are  conditional  for  all  real  forms  that  may  be  con- 
structed within  them,  and  this  can  be  only  of  figure  and 
period,  but  the  self  can  not  be  subjected  to  such  conditions, 
and  can  not  therefore  become  object.  That  the  self  should 
become  object  would  demand  that  we  should  see  through^ 
and  not  merely  that  which  is  in^  the  envisaging  mirror. 

It  may  also  be  disclosed,  here,  how  we  may  come  to  the 
conviction  that  a  self  is,  while  we  can  not  yet  determine  at 
?\\  what  the  self  is. —  What  the  self  is  we  can  not  here  at  all 
determine,  inasmuch  as  all  the  intellectual  agency  which  we 
have  yet  attained  is  simply  that  of  conjoining  in  unity  and 
constructing  the  forms  for  phenomena,  while  the  self  can  not 


UNITY     OF    S  ELF-C  ONSCI  O  USXESS.  116 

be  plieuoinenon  nor  be  constructed  in  the  shapes  of  space  oi 
the  successions  of  time. 

But  the  conviction  that  a  self  is  originates  fairly  in  this 
that  the  unity  of  constructing  agency  and  revealing  con- 
sciousness is  conditional  for  all  possible  pure  objects.  Our 
agency,  as  intellectual,  must  be  in  perpetuated  unity ;  our 
revealings  in  consciousness,  must  be  in  a  unity  of  conscious- 
ness ;  and  both  intellect  and  consciousness  must  be  in  unity ; 
and  thus  a  higher  subject  as  self  must  be,  though  we  are 
not  yet  prepared  to  say  any  thing  about  it,  for  a  merely  con 
joining  agency  can  do  nothing  with  it. 

Finally,  it  may  be  explained  in  what  way  ice  awake  in 
self -consciousness. — The  spontaneous  agency  (no  matter 
here  whether  we  include  the  content  in  the  sensibility  or  not 
for  our  i^resent  purpose  as  an  example)  constructs  its  pro- 
duct in  space  and  time,  and  this  becomes  an  object  in  con- 
sciousness. This  produced  object  is  distinct  from  the  con- 
structing agency  (and  more  especially  so  when  the  matter 
m  the  sensibility  is  given),  and  both  it  and  the  process  of 
its  construction  are  in  the  immediate  intuition,  and  thus 
in  the  light  of  consciousness  they  are  diverse  from  each 
other.  The  agency  and  the  consciousness  are  referred  in 
their  unity  to  one  self,  which  is  the  unity  of  self-conscious- 
ness, but  the  object  can  not  be  so  referred  ;  that  is  other 
than  self,  a  not-self  j  and  this  discrimination  between  what 
is  from  self  and  what  is  from  not-self  is  the  find  big  of  my- 
self In  proportion  as  such  discrimination  is  absent,  in 
infancy,  in  syncope,  delirium,  somnambulism,  or  high  men* 
tal  excitement  and  passionate  absorption,  the  man  has  lost 
himself;  is  beside  himself;  not  self-conscious. 

We  have  now  attained  the  Idea  of  the  Sense  in  the  j^ure 


116  THE     SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

hituition.  It  is  hence  quite  competent  to  state  how  a  pure 
sense  may  be  which  may  give  pure  objects  in  a  conscious- 
ness. A  primitive  intuition  must  have  pure  space  and  time 
in  its  Umitless  diversity,  as  primitive  form  for  all  possible  real 
form  which  may  be  given  in  space  and  time.  An  intellec- 
tual agency,  as  productive  imagination,  must  construct  these 
real  forms  by  conjoining  the  diverse  in  pure  space  and  tune; 
the  process  to  which  result  must  possess  the  three  elements 
of  a  unity ^  inducing  a  plurality^  and  which  is  completed  in 
a  totality  ;  thus  giving  a  definite  quantity  as  product.  But 
in  order  to  the  possibility  for  such  conjoining  agency  there 
must  be  the  unity  of  the  agency,  the  unity  of  the  conscious- 
ness, and  the  unity  of  both  agency  and  consciousness  in  the 
same  self,  and  which  is  the  unity  of  self -consciousness.  In 
this  way  a  pure  object  in  space  and  time  may  be  determined 
as  my  object.  The  whole  may  be  concisely  expressed  in  the 
following  a  priori  formula,  viz.:  All  possihle  pure  object 
must  be  conjoined  by  the  intellect  in  the  primitive  intuition^ 
under  the  unity  of  self -consciousness. 

All  this  is  an  idea  of  the  faculty  of  the  sense  as  wholly 
pure  from  all  content  in  the  sensibility,  and  thus  wholly 
subjective  y  and  the  pure  objects  are  given  incommunicably 
to  any  other  subject  than  that  in  which  is  the  agency  and 
the  consciousness.  It  remains,  in  order  to  the  completed 
idea  of  the  sense,  that  we  attain  the  Idea  in  the  empirical 
Intuition^  which  will  now  introduce  the  Second  Division, 


SECOND     DIVISION. 

THE  IDEA  IN  THE  EMPIRICAL    INTUITION 


SECTION    I. 

THE   ATTAIIOIENT   OF   AN   A   PRIORI   POSITION"  THROUGH   A 
PROLEPSIS. 

All  intuition  is  an  immediate  beholding.  In  ihQ  primi- 
tive intuition  we  immediately  behold  space  and  time  as  pure 
diversity.  In  the  pure  intuition  we  immediately  behold  any 
definite  figures  or  periods  constructed  in  pure  space  and 
time.  When  a  content  in  the  sensibility  gives  the  matter 
for  somo  phenomenon  as  quality,  and  this  is  brought  di- 
rectly within  the  light  of  consciousness,  this  also  we  imme- 
diately behold ;  but  inasmuch  as  this  is  empirical  and  not 
pure  object ;  so  the  distinction  is  made  for  it  by  calling  it 
empirical  intuition.  In  all  perception  of  objects  in  the 
sense  this  content  in  the  sensibility  is  given,  and  as  the  qual- 
ity of  the  phenomenon,  its  a  priori  investigation  is  as  neces- 
sary to  a  complete  idea  of  the  sense  as  the  process  of  its 
construction  into  form.  This,  therefore,  is  the  design  of  the 
present  Division,  to  attain  the  subjective  Idea  of  the  Sense 
in  the  empirical  Intuition, 


118  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

The  first  requisition  is  that  we  attain  a  determinate  tran- 
scendental position  from  which  an  a  priori  examination  may 
be  had,  and  in  which  all  our  conclusions  shall  carry  with 
them  the  demonstrations  of  universality  and  necessity. 
We  should  wholly  fail  of  attaining  such  a  position  through 
a  process  of  abstraction,  as  before  for  the  primitive  intuition 
of  space  and  time.  An  abstraction  of  all  content  from  the 
sensibility  would  be  a  void  of  all  matter  for  phenomena,  and 
thus  the  nihility  of  all  empirical  intuition.  An  empty  or- 
ganism of  sense  gives  no  condition  for  any  intellectual  ope- 
ration, as  does  the  pure  diversity  of  space  and  time  in  the 
primitive  intuition  for  the  construction  of  pure  figure  and 
period.  We  are  then  forced  to  some  other  method  of  at- 
taining a  position  back  of  all  experience,  from  whence  to 
attain  those  conditional  principles  which  make  the  experi- 
ence of  perceived  phenomena  possible. 

That  there  should  be  some  content  in  the  sensibility  in 
order  to  sensation,  and  thus  a  condition  given  for  empirical 
intuition,  is  at  once  seen  to  be  a  universal  necessity.  An 
anticipatio7i  of  such  content  in  general,  as  condition  for  any 
and  all  perception  of  phenomena,  and  in  the  conception  of 
which  an  occasion  may  be  given  for  determining  what 
intellectual  operation  is  necessary  universally  for  bringing 
such  anticipated  content  under  an  empirical  intuition,  will 
give  to  us  our  determined  a  priori  position.  Such  a  gen- 
eral anticipation  of  content  in  the  sensibility,  as  conditional 
for  all  possible  empirical  intuition,  will  put  us  at  once  above 
all  experience  in  the  sense,  and  give  to  us  an  occasion  for 
investigating  the  whole  ground  of  possibility  for  bringing 
such  content  within  the  light  of  consciousness  and  thereby 
making  it  to   be   a  perceived   definite  phenomenon."    We 


A    PlilORI    POSITION    BY    A    PEOLEPSIS.     119 

shall  in  this  be  restricted  to  no  partial  organism  of  the  sen- 
sibility, but  whether  there  be  five  or  fifty  sources  of  or- 
ganic sensation,  and  each  of  these  organs  be  competent  to 
receive  content  of  a  thousand- fold  variety,  still  the  same 
conditional  principles  for  bringing  any  and  all  under  ai  em- 
pirical intuition  must  be  universally  necessary.  We  start 
from  this  general  anticipation  of  content,  and  in  it  deter- 
mine what  is  universally  necessary  that  it  may  be  possible 
to  appear  as  phenomenon  in  consciousness,  and  in  this  we 
attain  an  a  priori  subjective  idea  of  the  entire  process  of 
empirical  intuition.  The  position  is  attained  not  by  an 
abstraction  but  by  an  anticipation.  Such  an  anticipation 
was  by  the  old  Greek  philosophers  termed  a  Prolepsis 
{TTpoXrjipLg)^  and  we  here  use  it  as  inclusive  of  mere  content 
in  general  for  all  possible  phenomena. 

It  will  be  necessary  to  determine  how  it  is  possible  to 
bring  this  content  in  general  into  qualities  distinct  one  from 
another,  and  also  how  to  order  this  distinct  quality  into  defi- 
nite forms^  so  that  one  phenomenon  may  be  both  distinct  in 
quality  from  all  others,  and  definite  in  its  own  foj-m,  as 
appearing  in  the  consciousness.  We  shaU  thus  have  the 
conditions  of  two  separate  processes  of  an  intellectual 
agency  to  investigate,  viz.,  that  of  distinguishing  the  con- 
tent, and  that  of  constructing  the  distinguished  quality  into 
a  definite  form.  We  shall  in  this  have  the  subjective  Idea 
of  aU  perception  of  phenomena,  both  as  distinct  in  quality 
and  definite  in  form  ;  and  this  is  inclusive  of  the  entire  intel- 
lectual operation  which  is  conditional  for  all  possibility  of 
comjilete  empirical  intuition,  or,  as  the  same  thing,  clear 
perception  of  phenomena  in  the  sense.  The  idea  of  the 
operation  of  conjunction  has  already  been  attained  in  the 


120  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

bringing  of  pure  space  and  time  into  definite  figure  and 
period,  and  it  remains,  here,  that  we  investigate  the  primi- 
tive elements  of  the  operation  of  distinction;  and  then 
that  we  show  how  the  primitive  elements  of  conjunction, 
aln  ady  attained  in  pure  intuition,  apj^ly  also  to  empirical 
intuldon,  or  the  perceiving  of  phenomena. 


SECTION    II 


THE    PRIMITIVE    ELEMENTS    OF    ALL   POSSIBLE    ANTICIPATION 
OF   APPEARANCE    IN   THE    SENSE. 

Sensibility  is  the  capacity  of  being  afiected  by  the  pres- 
ence of  some  content  which  is  from  somewhere  given  to  it. 
The  affection  is  a  sensation,  and  answers  to  the  content  by 
which  it  has  been  induced.  It  may  thus  be  manifold  in  its 
diversity  according  to  the  diversity  in  all  possible  content 
which  may  affect  the  sensibility.  As  many  diverse  organs 
as  may  be  given  for  the  functions  of  the  sense,  so  great  must 
be  the  possible  diversity  of  the  kinds  of  content  that  may 
be  received  ;  and  as  diverse  as  the  impressions  given  induc- 
ing in  each  organ  its  diversity  of  affection,  so  much  may  be 
the  possible  diversity  of  the  varieties  of  content  that  may 
be  received.  Thus,  the  eye  as  organ,  may  receive  one  kind 
of  content,  and  the  ear  as  diverse  organ  another  kind,  etc., 
and  thus  the  kinds  be  diversified  through  all  possible  organs. 
The  eye  again  may  receive  its  content  of  all  possible  diver- 
sities, inducing  all  possible  diversity  in  its  sensation,  and  the 
ear  and  all  other  possible  organs  in  the  same  manner,  and 
thus  there  mny  be  a  diversity  of  varieties  in  the  sensation 


PRIMITIVE    ELEMENTS     OF    DISTINCTION.    121 

through  all  possible  content.  The  diverse  organs  will  give 
diverse  kinds,  and  the  diverse  aifections  in  the  same  organ, 
and  this  through  all  possible  organs,  will  give  the  diverse 
varieties  possible.  All  possible  diversity  of  sensation  may 
thus  be  given  in  an  anticipation  of  all  possible  content  in  the 
sense. 

The  prolepsis  in  the  sense  is  that  of  a  universal  anticipa- 
tion of  content  in  all  possible  kinds  and  varieties ;  inclusive 
not  only  of  that  which  conditions  our  human  perception, 
but  of  all  possible  perception  of  phenomena  in  any  sense. 
And  of  this  universal  prolepsis  of  content  we  now  deter- 
mine that  it  may  have  all  possible  diversity  of  kind  and 
variety,  and  thus  be  wholly  undiscriminated  and  undistin- 
guished. The  sensibility  may  give  all  j^ossible  diversity  of 
content  in  all  the  kinds  and  varieties  of  sensation,  but  the 
sensation  completed  is  all  that  the  functions  of  the  organic 
sensibility  can  accomplish.  The  sensibility  distinguishes 
nothing,  but  only  gives  content  in  its  diversity  which  must 
be  distinguished  by  an  intellectual  agency.  Were  there  no 
other  functions  than  those  in  the  sensibility,  nothing  could 
be  determined  in  its  own  distinct  appearance,  but  all  must 
remain  in  the  chaotic  confusion  of  undiscriminated  diverse 
sensation.  An  intellectual  agency  must  first  brood  over  the 
chaos,  or  no  one  kind  or  variety  can  come  out  in  its  distinct- 
ness in  the  consciousness.  An  agency  is  demanded  which 
may  distinguish  amid  the  kinds  and  varieties  in  the  sensation. 
The  intellectual  agency  in  distinguishing  must  perform  a 
different  work  from  that  already  examined  in  constructing, 
and  this  process  of  distinguishing  needs  now  to  be  as  care- 
fully mvestigated  as  has  before  been  effected  for  the  process 
of  constructing  definite  forms  in  pure  space  and  time.     In 

6 


122  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

construction,  the  work  performed  was  that  of  a  conjoining 
in  unity ;  in  distinction,  the  work  performed  is  a  discrimin- 
ating in  an  mdividuaUty.  The  one  attains  forms  in  conjunc- 
tion, the  other  attains  appearances  in  distinction ;  one  pro- 
duces its  object  by  collecting  the  diversity  into  it,  the  other 
finds  its  object  by  excluding  all  diversity  from  it.  Tlii? 
OxieTation  of  Distinction  is  that  which  we  now  proceed 
to  examine,  that  we  may  attain  all  the  primitive  elements 
which  must  be  found  within  it. 

1.  Our  universal  anticipation  is  inclusive  of  all  possible 
content  in  a  sensibility,  whether  of  an  outer  or  an  inner 
sense,  and  of  all  possible  kinds  and  varieties  ;  and  as  thus 
wholly  undiscriminated,  it  demands  that  what  is  to  be  a 
precise  appearance  in  the  consciousness,  should  be  com_ 
pletely  distinguished  in  its  sensation  from  all  others.  Con- 
tent must  first  be  given  to  the  sensibility,  and  by  discrimin- 
atmg  and  excluding  all  diversity  from  it,  that  content  is 
found  in  its  own  distinct  phenomenal  quality  in  the  con- 
sciousness. A  void  sensibility  can  offer  nothing  to  be  dis- 
tinguished, and  the  sensibility  has  itself  no  function  for  pro- 
ducing: content  within  itself,  and  thus  from  somewhere  other 
than  itself  must  the  content  come.  The  intellectual  agency 
as  distinguishing  operation  has  first  to  be  supplied  with  a 
sensation,  which  must  be  induced  by  some  content  affecting 
the  sensibility ;  and  the  apprehending  of  this  involves  a  dis- 
criminating it  from  non-sensation,  and  thus  a  determining 
that  the  sensibility  is  not  void.  The  distinction  here  is 
between  content  and  a  void,  sensation  and  non-sensation; 
and  this  intellectual  taking  up  of  some  content  is  henceforth 
in  the  process  an  exclusion  of  all  non-contenX  from  the 
apprehending  agency,  and  the  detei-mination  that  some  of 


PRIMITIVE    ELEMENTS     OF    DISTINCTION.    123 

all  possible  diversity  of  sensation  appears  in  the  conscions- 
ness.  There  is  something  as  opposed  to  nothing  which 
appears,  and  in  this  distinction  of  appearance  from  non- 
appearance in  the  consciousness  is  first  attained  the  concep- 
tion of  a  phenomenal  reality.  Some  matter  now  stands  ir 
the  consciousness,  which  has  been  found  by  the  agency  tha 
discriminates  sensation  from  non-sensation ;  and  this  is  th? 
first  element  in  the  operation  of  distinction,  viz.,  Reality. 

2.  It  must  be  manifest  that  a  completed  work  of  dis 
tinction  is  not  given  in  this,  that  some  content  as  opposed 
to  n on- sensation  appears.  It  may  be  any  one  of  all  possible 
realities  in  appearance,  and  in  order 'to  its  precise  determin- 
ation in  the  consciousness,  it  must  be  competent  to  deny  of 
this  that  which  may  be  in  all  other  appearances  beside  this. 
That  it  is  real  appearance  is  a  determined  distinction  from 
non-appearance  only,  and  it  needs  further  to  be  determined 
as  distinction  from  all  other  possible  appearances.  The 
intellectual  agency  must,  therefore,  proceed  in  its  distin- 
guishing work,  and  exclude  from  this  appearance  all  other 
possible  appearances,  and  thus  affirm  for  it  the  absence  of 
all  other  reality  than  that  which  is  its  own.  To  effect  such 
further  distinction,  all  other  diversity  must  be  cut  off"  from 
this  reality,  and  stand  over  against  this  as  other  than,  and 
the  contrary  of,  this.  All  other  realities  excluded  from  this 
determines  their  distinction  from  this,  and  thereby  particu- 
larizes this  in  the  discrimination  of  all  others  apart  from 
this.  This  denying  of  that  which  is  in  any  other  possiWe 
reality  to  be  in  this  present  apprehended  reality  excludes  all 
other  reality,  and  makes  this  a  discriminated  particular. 
We  have,  therefore,  in  this  further  process  of  distinction, 


124  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

added  to  the  element  of  reality,  this  second  element  of  Par- 
iicularity. 

3.  That  we  have  distinguished  the  real  from  the  non- 
real,  and  also  the  particular  from  the  universal,  has  not  yet 
completed  the  work  of  distinction.  We  may  be  able  to 
affirm  of  any  real  appearance  that  it  is  not  any  other  appear- 
ance, and  this  will  be  but  negative  determination.  To  say 
of  some  appearance,  this  is  not  color,  nor  sound,  nor  taste, 
etc.,  and  in  reference  to  variety,  this  is  not  redness,  nor 
greenness,  nor  whiteness,  etc.,  and  so  also  of  the  internal 
phenomena,  this  is  not  thought,  nor  volition,  nor  grief,  nor 
joy,  etc.,  and  to  carry  this  discrimination  so  far  as  to  deny 
all  other  and  thus  particularize  this,  would  still  only  be  to 
affirm  what  it  is  not.  It  discriminates  and  thus  determines 
negatively,  but  finds  nothing  positively.  It  is  preparatory 
to  a  completed  distinction,  but  is  not  the  consummation  of 
the  work.  The  distinguishing  agency  must  now  advance 
to  an  individualizing  of  this  particular  reality  in  its  own 
appearance.  It  must  affirm  more  than  what  it  is  not,  even 
what  it  is ;  more  than  what  is  excluded  from  it,  even  that 
which  is  included  in  it.  That  must  positively  be  found  in  it 
which  is  not  in  any  other  reality,  and  thus  it  must  separate 
itself  positively,  and  not  merely  negatively  from  all  reality 
but  itself,  that  it  may  appear  in  consciousness  having  its 
own  peculiar  phenomenal  variety.  This  will  add  to  the  ele- 
ments of  reality  and  particularity,  the  third  element  of 
Peculiarity. 

It  is,  moreover,  a  priori  manifest,  that  not  only  must  all 
comj)lete  distinction  include  the  elements  of  reality,  particu- 
larity, and  peculiarity,  inasmuch  as  nothing  can  be  distinctly 
apprehended  except  as  a  reality  which  is  particular  from  all 


PRIMITIVE   ELEMENTS    OF   D  I  S  TI  N  CT  I  O  N  .  125 

Others  and  peculiar  in  itself;  but  that  also  no  operation  of 
distinction  can  have  more  than  these  three  elements,  for 
when  the  appearance  is  apprehended  in  its  reality,  particu- 
larity and  peculiarity  it  is  completely  discriminated,  and 
no  work  of  distinguishing  can  be  carried  forward  any  fur- 
ther. The  operation  of  distinction  is  always  complete  in 
this,  that  it  finds  a  reality,  particularized  from  all  others, 
and  peculiar  in  itself,  and  thus  a  precise  appearance  is  given 
in  the  consciousness.  This  operation  of  distinction,  as  an 
intellectual  work  bringing  the  diverse  sensation  into  a  pre- 
cise appearance  in  consciousness,  may  properly  be  termed 
Observation,  The  completed  result  as  precise  appearance 
in  consciousness  is  Quality.  All  sensation  as  distinguished 
in  a  complete  observation  becomes  quality,  and  may  be  of 
different  kinds  ;  as  colors,  weights,  sounds,  etc.,  and  also  of 
different  varieties  /  as  red,  green,  yellow,  etc.,  and  also  differ 
as  inner  appearance;  as  thought,  feeling,  volition,  etc. 
All  quality  is  educed  from  sensation,  the  sensation  being 
taken  up  by  the  intellectual  agency,  and  in  its  distinguishing 
operation  found  thereby  to  be  a  reality,  particularized  from 
all  others,  and  peculiar  in  its  own  phenomenal  being. 

We  have,  in  the  attainment  of  these  primitive  elements 
of  distinction,  kept  the  result  of  the  process  in  view  rather 
than  the  process  itself,  and  have  thus  noted  what  has  been 
found  by  it  in  the  universal  content  anticipated,  as  before 
in  the  constructing  process  of  conjunction  what  was  pro- 
duced by  it  in  pure  space  and  time ;  and  v/e  attain  thus,  not 
merely  what  our  subjective  fiiculty  of  judgment  may  accom. 
plish,  but  what  must  be  effected  by  all  possible  faculties  in 
order  to  the  precise  discrimination  of  any  quality  in  the 
consciousnesr>.      All   possible  distinguishable   quality  must 


126  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

possess  reality,  particularity,  and  peculiarity.  The  opera- 
tion of  Distinction  in  all  possible  sensation  must  find  these 
primitive  elements,  so  many  and  no  more. 

It  must  also  be  here  noted  that  some  things  are  condi- 
tional in  order  that  a  distinguishing  agency  may  be,  as  we 
before  found  conditions  for  the  possibility  of  a  conjoining 
agency.     "We  need  here  merely  to  notice  them  cursorily,  as 
what  was  given  above  more  fully  will  be  mainly  applicable 
to  the  agency  discriminating   as  well  as  the  agency  con- 
structing.     There   must   be   the   Unity   of    discriminating 
agency,  or  the   diversity  in  sensation  could  not  be  distin- 
guished, inasmuch  as  what  was  taken  up  at  one  apprehen- 
sion would  else  be  lost  at  another.     There  must  be  a  Unity 
of  the  sensibility  also,  or  one  kind  of  sensation  would  be- 
long to  one  subject,  and  another  kind  to  another.     And 
both  distinguishing  agency,  and  sensibility  must  be  in  Unity 
of  consciousness,  or  the  content  to  be  discriminated  could 
not  be  put  in  the  same  consciousness  as  the  distinguishing 
operation.     And,  lastly,  all  must  be  in  the  higher  Unity  of 
the  same  subject,  that  both  the  sensation,  the  distinction, 
and  the  consciousness,  may  belong  to  the  same  self,  and 
thus  what  the  self  has  in  sensation,  the  same  self  distin- 
guishes, and  the  consciousness  in  which  all  appear  is  also  in 
the   same   self;  and  which   may  be   termed   as   before   the 
Unity  of  self-consciousness, 

"We  may  thus  affirm,  as  an  d  priori  cognition,  that  all 
possible  quality  must  be  discriminated  in  the  elements  of 
all  Distinction,  viz.,  reality,  particularity,  and  peculiarity. 
This  would  give  the  idea  of  the  sense  in  its  content  for  a 
phenomenon,  as  an  anticipation  of  all  possible  content  in 
sensation ;  but  thus  far  the  matter  is  only  distinguished,  not 


A    IRIORI    DIVERSITY    IN    QUALITY.         127 

conjoined  into  form,  which  last  must  be  effected  in  order 
that  it  may  come  within  an  empirical  intuition ;  we  will  then 
now  attain  the  process  for  a  priori  giving /brm  to  the  con- 
tent asr  distinguished,  and  thus  complete  the  Idea  in  the 
empirical  Intuition. 


sectio:n'  III 


THE   A   PRIORI   DETERMINATION    OF   WHAT   DIVERSITY   THERB 
MUST   BE    IN   ALL    QUALITY. 

Void  sensibility  can  possess  no  sensation.  It  is  no  mat- 
ter of  consideration  here  whether  the  sensibility  be  itself 
more  or  less  sensitive.  There  may,  doubtless,  be  a  readi- 
ness to  become  affected,  in  different  sensibilities,  through 
widely  different  degrees.  It  raay  be  that  in  us  men,  there 
is  far  less  capability  of  being  affected  by  a  content  in  our 
sensibility,  than  would  be  in  beings  whose  perfection  of  sen- 
sibility was  the  highest  possible.  Perhaps  an  organ  of  sense 
sufficiently  perfected  might  be  so  affected  by  the  content 
given  in  magnetic  or  electric  influences,  or  in  chemical  elec. 
tive  affinities,  or  even  in  the  light  itself,  that  it  should  give 
to  the  discriminating  agency  of  the  intellect  sensations 
which  might  be  precisely  distinguished,  and  thereby  unrid- 
dle all  those  mysteries  which  are  now  mere  hypothesis  and 
theory,  and  make  them  to  be  plain  facts  in  perception.  Nor 
is  it  of  any  moment  here  to  determine  how  comprehensive  a 
sensibility  may  possibly  be.  It  may  be  conceived  that  new 
organs  of  sense  should  be  indefinitely  added  to  our  five  or 
six,  and  that  the  field  of  perception  should  thus  be  indefia- 


128  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

itely  augmented.  But  whether  the  sensibility  be  more  or 
less  perfect  in  sensitiveness,  or  more  or  less  comprehensive 
in  varied  organs  for  receiving  content  for  sensation,  this  is 
universally  true,  that  all  sensibility  of  all  possible  perfection 
and  compass  must  have  its  content  from  somewhere  given 
to  it,  in  order  that  any  affection  as  sensation  should  be  given 
in  it.  Xo  quality  can  appear,  except  as  its  content  to  be 
distinguished  has  somehow  been  given  in  a  sensibility. 

And  now,  all  quality  as  tlius  anticipated  may  admit  of  a 
diversity  in  two  different  directions  of  consideration.  The 
content  in  the  sensibility  inducing  sensation  may  be  diverse^ 
It  may  be  given  through  diffei-ent  organs  of  sense,  and  thus 
be  diverse  in  kind ;  it  may  give  different  sensations  in  the 
same  organ,  and  thus  be  diverse  in  variety.  Colors,  sounds, 
smells,  thoughts,  feelings,  etc.,  are  all  diverse  in  hind:  and 
thus  with  all  possible  organs  and  faculties  of  an  outward  or 
inward  sensibihty.  Red  and  blue;  bitter  and  sweet;  warm 
and  smooth  ;  joy,  grief,  hope  ;  conception,  recollection,  etc., 
etc.,  are  all  diverse  in  variety ;  and  thus  through  all  the 
difference  of  sensation  that  may  be  given  within  the  same 
organs  and  faculties  of  an  external  or  internal  sense.  In  all 
this  diversity  as  appearing  in  the  content,  there  is  difference 
as  contrariety  in  the  reality  itself^  and  the  diverse  may 
therefore  be  termed  that  of  the  heterogeneous.  This  diver- 
sity as  heterogeneous  in  quality  has  already  been  sufficiently 
explained  in  the  consideration  of  the  operation  of  Distinc- 
tion in  its  primary  elements.  All  such  diversity  possible  is 
ordered  in  the  appearance  through  a  process  of  distinguish- 
ing in  an  intellectual  agency.  All  possible  diversity  of 
quality,  which  may  be  made  to  appear  in  consciousness,  and 
which  is  heterogeneous  in  itself,  must  be  determined  in  an 


A    PRIORI    DI\  ERSITY    IN    QUALITY.  129 

operation  of  Distinction.  Sufficient  attention  has,  therefore, 
ah-eady  been  given  to  the  process  for  determining  all  possi- 
ble diversity  which  is  heterogeneous. 

But  in  another  point  of  consideration,  the  quality  has  a 
diversity  in  another  manner.  All  the  redness,  or  the  cold- 
ness, or  the  grief,  which  is  given  as  appearance  from  the 
same  separate  sensation,  has  in  itself  no  contrariety  but  has 
similarity  throughout.  And  yet  there  is  diversity,  for  the 
redness  of  one  place  is  diverse»from  the  redness  in  another, 
and  the  coldness  of  one  period  is  diverse  from  the  coldness 
of  another,  and  the  grief  rises  or  diminishes  in  diverse 
degrees ;  and  thus  in  all,  there  is  diversity  which  involves 
no  contrariety  of  the  reality  itself,  but  which  possesses  simi^ 
larity  thoroughly.  This  diversity,  then,  may  be  termed  the 
homogeneous.  And  as  this  has  not  at  all,  as  yet,  been  con- 
sidered, and  as  in  the  ordering  of  this  diversity  homogene- 
ous in  the  appearance  will  be  found  all  that  belongs  to  the 
form^  and  in  this  also  all  that  can  come  into  an  empirical 
intuition,  and  therefore  all  that  may  be  embraced  in  the  idea 
of  the  sense  as  in  the  empirical  intuition,  it  becomes  neces- 
sary clearly  to  apprehend  this  homogeneous  diversity,  and 
the  whole  process  of  its  becoming  an  oi'dered  form  for  the 
content  given  in  the  sensation.  The  object  in  this  section  is, 
to  determine  this  universal  possible  diversity  of  quality. 

1.  Of  all  possible  quality  which  may  be  determined  from 
anticipation  of  content  in  the  sensibility,  a  distinction  must 
be  made  between  it  as  a  reality^  and  a  void  sensibility  which 
can  give  no  reality.  We  may,  therefore,  take  any  reality  as 
quality,  and  while  homogeneous  in  itself,  it  may  vary  in 
amount  indefinitely.  The  intellectual  distinction  from  the 
non-real  to  the  real  has  simply  the  limit,  as  zero,  between 

6* 


130  THE    SENSE    INITS    IDEA. 

them.  On  one  side  is  the  negative  of  all  ajjpearance  and 
reality ;  on  the  other  is  a  precisely  discriminated  appearance 
and  reality;  and  this,  it  is  manifest,  may  vary  in  amount 
from  the  least  possible  degree  of  that  reality  vrhich  can 
appear,  up  to  the  highest  possible  which  can  be  given  in  an 
appearance.  This  difference  of  degree  possible  is  a  diver- 
sity in  the  anticipation,  and  includes  all  possible  diversity 
of  that  reality ;  and  as  it  is  a  diversity  throughout  in  the 
same  reality,  it  has  similarity  and  not  contrariety.  It  is 
thus  a  homogeneous  diversity.  And  inasmuch  as  the  amount 
is  determined  from  the  given  sensation  as  degree  of  affec- 
tion in  the  sensibility,  it  is  a  homogeneous  diversity  which 
should  be  characterized  by  a  term  expressive  of  its  genesis. 
The  amount  of  the  pressure  as  heaviness,  or  of  the  color  as 
brightness,  is  as  the  intensity  of  affection  in  the  sensibility ; 
the  intensity  of  the  sensation  giving  the  amount  in  appear- 
ance, and  thus  having  a  homogeneous  diversity  fi-ora  the 
point  of  no  sensation  up  to  the  given  sensation.  We  may, 
then,  as  characteristic  of  this  homogeneous  diversity,  term 
it  a  diversity  as  Intensive. 

2.  Though  as  reality,  the  quality  may  have  a  homogene- 
ous diversity  only  as  intensive,  and  thus  through  all  its 
amount,  yet  in  another  point  of  view  a  homogeneous  diver- 
sity is  in  another  manner  given.  The  quahty,  as  that  of  an 
external  sense  may  occupy  more  or  less  of  space.  The  con- 
tent given  in  sensation  thus  considered  stands  in  space  as 
the  homogeneous  through  all  the  place  it  occupies,  and  it 
becomes  thus  a  diversity  in  the  empiricjil  intuition  precisely 
as  pure  space  is  a  diversity  in  the  primitive  intuition.  The 
reality  is  homogeneous  in  the  same  place  that  the  pure  space 
is  homogeneous,  and  thus  has  a  diversity  of  itself  in  every 


A    PRIORI    DIVERSITY    IN    QUALITY.  131 

point  of  space  in  that  place.  Quality,  thus,  may  be  homo- 
geneously diverse  in  place;  and  as  characteristic  of  this 
specific  diversity,  as  it  fills  more  or  less  extended  place,  we 
will  term  it  diversity  as  Extensive. 

3.  Quality  may  have  diversity  intensive  and  extensive, 
not  only,  but  also  in  another  manner  there  may  be  homo- 
geneity through  a  diversity.  The  reality  as  appearance  is 
given  during  the  continuance  of  the  sensation.  So  long  as 
the  content  in  the  sensibiUty  aflTects  this  sensibihty  in  the 
same  manner,  the  sensation  is  similar  and  homogeneous 
throughout,  and  thus  the  homogeneous  reality  occupies  the 
same  succession  of  instants  in  pure  time  for  the  empirical 
intuition,  that  the  pure  period  does  in  the  pure  intuition. 
As  the  instants  in  the  pure  period  are  homogeneous  and 
diverse,  so  the  reality  occupying  this  period  is  throughout 
homogeneous,  and  in  each  instant  diverse.  The  reality  is 
homogeneous  in  the  same  period  that  the  pure  time  is  homo- 
geneous, and  thus  has  a  diversity  of  itself  in  every  instant 
of  the  time  it  fills.  Quality  may  thus  be  homogeneously 
diverse  in  time  ;  and  as  descriptive  of  this  manner  of  homo- 
geneous diversity  we  may  term  it  the  Protensive. 

Now  an  intellectual  agency  must  distiiigidsh  the  hetero- 
geneous, and  conjoin  the  homogeneous  diversity.  And 
this  conjunction  of  the  homogeneous  will  give  form  to  that 
matter,  which  has  been  distinguished  in  the  heterogeneoTia 
diversity. 


182  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    IDBA, 


SECTIONIV.  , 

THE   CONSTEITCTION   OF   THE   HOMOGENEOUS   DIVERSITY    OF 
ALL   POSSIBLE    QUALITY   INTO   FORM. 

There  are  two  main  questions  which  may  be  asked  con 
cerning  any  anticipated  content  in  sensation,  and  which  must 
be  answered  as  conditional  for  all  distinct  and  definite 
appearance  in  consciousness.  The  first  is — What  is  the 
quality  ?  The  process  for  arriving  at  an  answer  to  this,  has 
ali-eady  been  indicated.  It  must  be  through  the  oper- 
ation of  Distinction.  The  intellect  as  discriminating  agent 
must  take  up  the  sensation  and  determine  it  in  its  reality, 
particularity,  and  peculiarity ;  and  such  agency  places  it  in 
its  own  precise  distinctness  of  quality  immediately  in  the 
light  of  consciousness,  and  capacitates  us  to  say  directly 
what  it  is.  Thus  far  it  is  properly  observation,  and  this 
determining  of  quality  in  its  distinctness  is  all  that  observa- 
tion can  accomplish. 

A  second  question  is — ITow  much  is  the  quality  ?  The 
process  to  the  attainment  of  an  answer  here  is  by  a  diiferent 
operation  than  that  of  distinction  altogether.  The  quahty 
is  contemplated  as  having  quantity,  and  the  intellectual 
agency  is  to  be  employed  in  determining  how  much  quantity. 
And  now,  in  our  first  Division  in  this  Chapter,  we  attained 
the  d  priori  process  for  the  production  of  all  pure  quantity 
through  a  conjunction  in  unity,  the  application  of  which  to 
the  distinct  quality  must  be  our  only  method  for  determm- 
ing  how  much  it  is.  All  quantity  has  its  quality,  and  all 
qualit}'  has  a  quantity.     The  only  quality  which  any  quantity 


CONJUNCTION    OF    QUALITY   INTO   FORM.      133 

may  have  is,  that  it  is  extended ;  and,  as  all  extejision  is 
determined  only  by  a  conjoining  agency,  so  both  the  quan- 
tity and  its  quality  are  given  in  the  same  constructing  oper- 
ation. A  conjoining  act  gives  both  a  quantity  and  also  that 
the  quantity  has  extension.  There  is,  therefore,  in  the  deter- 
mination of  quantity  no  operation  of  distinction  demanded, 
for  its  precise  quality  is  given  in  giving  itself.  There  is 
nothing  to  be  discriminated  in  extension  itself  as  a  quaUty, 
but  only  that  it  be  determined  whether  the  extension  be 
pure  or  empirical. 

But  not  thus  with  the  quality.  The  agency  which  dis- 
criminates this,  and  thus  gives  it  precisely  and  distinctly  iii 
the  consciousness,  has  not  accomplished  the  whole  work 
demanded.  The  operation  of  distinction  has  given  quality 
only,  and  quality  has  quantity  which  no  distinguishing 
agency  can  determine.  In  addition  to  the  operation  of  dis- 
tinction there  must  also  be  the  operation  of  conjunction. 
While,  therefore,  we  could  finish  our  work  in  the  construc- 
tion of  quantity  by  one  operation  of  conjunction,  in  relation 
to  quality  we  must  apply  both  operations.  To  find  the  pre- 
cise quality,  Avhat  it  is,  we  must  distinguish ;  and  then,  to 
find  how  much  it  is,  we  must  conjoin.  The  distinguishing 
process  has  been  already  given ;  we  have  here  to  apply  the 
conjoining  process.  This  will  demand  a  constructing  pro- 
cess in  a  three-fold  order  of  operation,  inasmuch  as  the 
homogeneous  diversity  to  be  constructed  is  three-fold.  The 
question,  Hoav  much  is  the  quality  ?  .may  mean.  How  much 
as  Intensive^  as  Extensive^  or  as  Protensivef  i.  e.,  how 
much  in  the  sensation  ?  how  much  in  space  ?  and  how  much 
in  time  ?  Only  in  the  answers  to  these  three  inquiries,  do 
we  exhaust  the  quantity  which  is  to  be  found  in  all  quality, 


134  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

The  operation  in  distinction  we  have  said  to  be  Observation } 
we  shall  now  find  the  operation  in  conjunction  to  be  Atte?i- 
tion.  Attention  not  only  extends  the  intellect  to  the  con- 
tent in  sensation,  but  includes  the  operation  then  performed 
in  constructing  it,  and  which  puts  the  form  of  the  content 
in  clear  consciousness.  The  applying  of  the  intellect  to  the 
content  in  sensation  may  be  by  an  act  of  the  will,  or  it  may 
be  spontaneous,  as  must  have  been  the  first  agency  in  child- 
hood, and  as  often  is  in  adult  life.  But  the  attending  act 
{ad  tendo)  is  the  intellect  stretching  or  extending  over,  and 
thus  circumscribing  or  constructing  the  content  in  its  com- 
plete form;  and  this  is  none  other  than  the  operation  of 
conjunction  in  unity. 

In  pure  space  and  time  the  definite  form  as  quantity  is 
to  be  constructed  by  an  intellectual  agency  in  its  sponta- 
neity, moving  over  the  diversity  in  its  manifoldness  and  con- 
joining it  in  unity.  The  same  work  must  also  be  effected 
for  the  content  in  sensation  through  its  three-fold  diversity 
as  intensive,  extensive,  and  protensive.  The  difference  is 
only  in  this,  that  the  pure  diagrams  in  space  and  time  must 
be  constructed  according  to  some  scheme  in  the  productive 
imagination;  but  the  empirical  forms  must  be  constructed 
according  to  the  content  as  given  in  the  sensation ;  the  work 
of  construction  is  precisely  the  same  in  both — the  conjunc- 
tion of  the  diversity  in  a  unity,  plurality,  and  totality — 
and  thereby  giving  completeness  to  the  quantity  of  the  qual* 
ity  already  distinguished.  The  act  of  observation  is  thus  to 
give  distinctness  to  quality  ;  and  the  act  of  attention  is  to 
give  definiteness  to  quantity:  in  observing,  we  distinguish 
it  from  all  other  quality ;  in  attending,  we  limit  it  in  its  own 
quantity :  in  the  first,  we  get  the  distinct  quality  of  the 


CONJUNCTION     OF     QUALITY    INTO    FORM.  135 

phenomenon ;  in  the  last  we  get  the  definite  form  of  the 
phenomenon.  We  will  now  at  once  give  the  latter  process 
in  its  three-fold  application  to  the  homogeneous  diversity. 

1.  The  diversity  as  i7itensive  is  given  wholly  within  the 
sensibility,  and  is  the  manifoldness  of  degree  from  no  sensa- 
tion upward  to  the  intensity  of  any  given  sensation.  In 
order  to  attain  the  form  of  the  quahty  as  to  how  much  in 
amount,  this  diversity  in  the  sensation  must  be  conjoined 
in  unity  into  one  total  quantity.  The  intellect,  as  construct- 
ing agency,  must  commence  from  zero  in  the  sensation,  and 
conjoin  the  diverse  degrees  of  intensity  through  all  their 
multiplicity  up  to  and  terminating  in  the  degree  that  limits 
the  intensity  of  the  given  sensation,  and  such  completed 
product  is  the  quantity,  or  form  in  intensity,  of  that  given 
quality.  Such  construction,  as  attending  agency,  brings  the 
quantity  of  the  intensity  into  immediate  consciousness,  and 
we  perceive  how  much  in  amount  the  quality  is. 

Thus,  I  have  the  sensation  of  a  pressure^  and  by  obser- 
vation I  distinguish  the  sensation  as  heaviness.  By  atten- 
tion I  go  over  and  conjoin  the  diversity  from  no  heaviness 
up  to  the  intensity  of  pressure  as  given  in  sensation,  and  I 
perceive  there  is  so  much  weight. 

So  also,  I  have  a  sensation  which  in  distinction  I  ob 
serve  to  be  sound,  and  in  further  discrimination  I  observe 
that  there  is  a  great  variety  of  sounds,  and  this  is  the  ut- 
most which  any  distinguishing  agency  can  here  accomplish. 
But  I  attend  to  these  various  sounds,  and  thus  construct 
their  quantity,  and  I  at  once  perceive  their  various  degrees 
of  intensity,  and  can  now  discriminate  by  other  faculties, 
which  need  not  here  be  noticed,  what  is  going  on  in  these 


130  THESENSEINITS    IDEA. 

sounds  and  binding  them  in  unison  as  a  definite  harmony 
into  their  tune. 

So,  with  an  anticipated  content  in  the  organ  of  vision 
inducing  sensation,  I  discriminate  and  observe  Hght ;  and  at 
different  times  distinguish  the  pecuharities  of  sunhght  from 
moonshine.  Here  is  the  completion  of  what  appears  from 
observation.  But  I  attend  in  a  constructing  agency  and 
conjoin  the  degrees  of  intensity  in  the  sunlight,  and  again 
in  the  moon-light,  and  I  thus  perceive  how  much  light  in 
both  separately,  and  can  now  determine  that  it  requires  so 
many  thousand  times  the  intensity  of  the  moonlight  to 
equal  the  intensity  of  the  sunlight. 

Thus  of  any  iuAvard  sensation ;  I  distinguish,  and  ob- 
serve myself  to  be  grieved ;  I  construct  the  degrees  of  in- 
tensity in  attention,  and  determine  the  amount  of  my  grief. 

Thus  in  all  diversity  as  intensive,  the  operation  of  dis- 
tinction can  give  only  the  quality  in  its  peculiarity ;  the  ope- 
ration of  conjunction  must  be  conditional  for  bringing  the 
amount  of  the  quality  into  consciousness.  Except  as  this 
conjoining  agency  goes  through  the  entire  diversity  of  the 
sensation,  it  is  impossible  that  the  quantity  of  the  quality 
should  be  perceived. 

2.  The  diversity  as  extejisive  is  the  manifoldness  of  the 
points  in  the  content  of  sensation,  as  occupying  so  much 
space.  The  precise  quality  having  been  discriminated,  the 
question  is,  not  how  much  as  intensive,  but  how  great  as 
extensive  ?  The  matter  having  been  determined  in  distinct 
observation,  the  form  must  be  determined  in  definite  atten 
tion.  A  conjoining  agency  must  pass  over  these  diverse 
points  and  bring  them  in  unity  in  the  same  manner  as  be- 
fore shown  in  pure  space,  with  this  difference  only,  that  in 


CONJUNCTION    OF    QUALITY   INTO    FOHM.     13^ 

pure  space  the  constnicting  agency  is  guided  in  its  work  by 
some  scheme  in  the  imagination,  but  in  the  anticipated  con- 
tent it  must  be  conditioned  by  the  sensation.  This  con- 
struction completed,  determines  the  form  of  the  quality  as 
figure  in  space. 

Thus  I  anticipate  a  given  sensation  in  a  resistance  to 
touch,  which  as  precisely  distinguished  I  term  the  quality  of 
solidity.  Without  determining  the  form  as  intensity,  i.  e., 
how  hard  it  is ;  I  only  seek  the  form  as  extension,  how  large 
it  is.  I  must  pass  my  organ  of  touch  over  the  matter  and 
bring  it  successively  in  the  sensation,  and  the  attending 
agency  must  construct  the  whole  by  joining  the  diverse 
points  in  unity  and  thereby  give  definite  limits  to  this  solid- 
ity ;  and  then  affirm  the  quality  to  be  of  such  a  figure,  and 
to  fill  so  much  of  space.  The  matter  has  thus  a  definite 
form,  as  so  great  extension. 

So  again,  with  an  anticipated  content  in  the  eye,  as  organ 
of  the  sensibility,  which  in  distinguishing  I  term  color ;  and 
in  further  observation  I  attain  the  varieties  of  the  color,  say 
now  specifically  green  and  white.  I  must  now  apply  a  con- 
structing agency,  and  in  attention  I  conjoin  the  greenness 
into  figure,  and  determine  the  magnitude  and  outlines  of  a 
verdant  court-yard ;  and  I  conjoin  also  the  whiteness,  and 
determine  the  size  and  proportions  of  the  dwelling-house, 
and  its  position  relatively  to  the  outlines  of  the  yard  in 
which  it  stands.  I  have  thus  brought  the  matter,  as  quahty 
in  sensation,  into  definite  form. 

Thus  with  all  quality  that  can  have  extension.  Distinc- 
tion gives  the  quality,  conjunction  determines  how  great  a 
space  it  occupies ;  nor  can  the  form  as  extensive  otherwise 
be  determined.      Without    observation  the   consciousness 


138  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

would  be  "  void,"  and  without  attention  the  quality  in  con- 
sciousness would  be  "  without  form."  Sensation  may  be 
perfected,  but  it  is  utter  chaos  except  as  an  intelligent  spirit, 
in  its  distinguishing  and  conjoining  agency,  broods  over  it. 

3.  The  diversity  as  protensive  is  in  the  manifoldness  of 
the  successive  instants  through  which  the  appearance  as 
quality  is  prolonged.  Of  any  distinct  quality,  we  may 
enquire,  not  merel}; ,  how  much  ?  as  intensive ;  nor  how 
great  ?  as  extensive ;  but  also,  how  long  ?  as  protensive  it 
endures.  And  for  the  determination  of  this,  the  same  pro- 
cess of  conjunction  in  an  attending  agency  is  necessary  as  in 
the  construction  of  period  in  pure  time,  except  that  the  con- 
joining agency  is  conditioned  to  the  sensation  in  its  begin- 
ning and  determination,  and  not  to  any  scheme  of  the  imagi- 
nation. 

Thus  an  anticipated  sensation  in  the  ear,  as  organ  of  the 
sensibility,  may  be  taken  and  distinguished  as  sound.  I  do 
not  now  enquire  how  loud,  nor  how  distant  it  may  be,  but 
only  how  long  does  it  continue  ?  I  attend  to  the  passing 
affection  of  my  inner  state,  and  conjoin  the  instants  from 
the  beginning  to  the  termination,  or  to  any  given  instant  in 
the  prolongation  of  the  sensation,  and  thus  determine  the 
period  which  the  sound  occupies  ;  and  thereby  affirm  that  it 
has  endured  so  long.  And  in  the  same  Avay,  for  the  form  of 
all  possible  quality  for  duration  in  time;  my  attending 
agency  must  conjoin  the  diversity,  and  thereby  construct 
the  definite  period. 

And  now,  in  these  three  diversities,  as  the  manifoldness 
of  degree,  of  extent,  and  of  duration,  all  possible  quantity 
which  any  quahty  may  possess  may  be  constructed,  and 
thus  all  possible  form  be  determined  for  all  matter.     Inteu- 


CONJCri^CTION    OF    QUALITSr   INTO   FORM.    139 

Bity  in  the  sensibility,  extension  in  space,  and  prolongation 
in  time  include  all  possible  mensurations  of  quantity.  If  we 
would  term  motion  and  force  to  be  qualities,  their  determin- 
ation will  be  included  in  the  above  methods  of  conjoining  in 
unity ;  for  the  motion  must  be  measured  as  so  much  exten- 
sion occupying  so  much  time  in  passing,  and  the  force  as  so 
much  intensity  of  resistance  or  so  much  motion  produced  ; 
all  of  which  have  their  diversities  as  above,  and  may  as 
above  be  all  conjoined  and  made  to  appear  in  an  attending 
agency.  There  can  be  no  other  possible  quantities  in  anj 
quality,  and  the  form  as  giving  definiteness  to  the  matter 
can  not  be  determined  in  any  other  possible  manner.  "We 
may  thus  give  the  a  jyriori  condition  for  constructing  all 
possible  quality  into  form,  viz. :  that  the  intellect  in  atten- 
tion must  conjoin  the  diversity  as  conditioned  by  the  sensa- 
tion,— whether  as  intensive,  extensive,  or  protensive — in 
unity,  plurahty,  and  totality.  The  concise  form  of  express- 
ing it  is — that  the  attentio?i  must  produce  the  form  in  all 
possible  quality, ' 

There  are  a  few  a  priori  cognitions  involved  in  what  has 
been  here  attained,  which  it  may  be  of  importance  to  notice 
in  this  place. 

1.  Inasmuch  as  all  constructions  of  form  must  take  place 
singly,  and  thus  no  two  forms  can  be  in  process  of  construc- 
tion together,  it  follows  that  an  accurate  and  exact  compar- 
ative mensuration  of  quantity  can  not  be  effected  in  atten- 
tion simply.  In  pure  space  I  may  construct  two  circles,  and 
in  sensation  I  may  have  the  matter  for  two  rings  which  I 
construct  into  form,  but  I  can  not  exactly  compare  the  two 
constructing  operations  together  in  either  case,  and  say  that 
the  two  circles  or  the  two  rings  are  of  precisely  the  same 


140  THE    SENSE    IN    ITSIDEA. 

quantity.  In  the  above  cases  I  may  come  near  to  exactness^ 
though  precisely  how  near  I  can  not  determine,  for  I  have 
no  capabihty  of  constructing  the  diversity  which  their  dif- 
ference in  quantity  contains.  In  many  other  cases,  the 
degrees  of  exactness  may  be  necessarily  much  wider  apart, 
especially  when  the  contents  must  be  given  in  diiFerent 
senses,  or  in  the  same  organ  at  different  times.  Thus  with 
the  precise  difference  in  the  extension  of  a  quantity  as  seen 
and  as  in  the  touch,  or  of  the  degrees  of  heat  or  of  weight 
at  two  different  experiences,  their  comparative  quantity 
must  be  still  less  accurately  given  in  attention  simply.  If  I 
know  that  the  circles,  as  above,  have  been  constructed  by 
the  circumvolution  of  two  lines  of  the  same  extent,  the 
judgment  at  once  decides  that  they  must  be  equal ;  but  a 
difficulty  would  here  again  occur,  how  shall  any  attending 
agency  simply  be  competent  to  determine  the  exact  equality 
of  the  two  lines  ?  But,  if  now  I  may  bring  the  forms  in 
both  cases  to  one  common  standard,  I  may  then  determine 
their  equality,  or  the  difference  between  them  exactly.  Thus 
if  I  may  apply  the  same  material  line  as  diameter  to  the 
two  rings  successively,  or  the  same  index  to  the  two  experi- 
ences of  heat ;  their  comparison  in  this  common  application 
may  determine  their  equality,  or  amount  of  inequality.  We 
may  thus  a  priori  see  the  necessity  for  empirical  standards 
of  mensuration,  and  the  principles  on  which  we  must  move 
to  attain  them.  Their  exactness  can  be  made  an  approxim- 
ation to  the  perfection  of  an  intuition,  by  so  much  as  the 
mechanical  execution  and  practical  application  of  the  com- 
mon measure  can  be  perfect.  It  is  easy  to  see  how  the 
experiment,  if  pot  intuitively  perfect,  may  yet  be  far  more 
nearly   exact   than   any   construction  in   attention   simply. 


C0NJUXCTI02^-   OF    QUALITY   IX TO    FORM.    141 

Thus  for  the  various  degrees  of  intensity  in  different  senses 
organically,  we  have  photometers,  thermometers,  barome- 
ters, balances,  etc. ;  and  for  extension  in  space,  rods  or 
chains  to  determine  length,  with  gallons,  bushels  and  gaugr 
ing  rods  to  determine  capacity ;  and  for  duration  in  time 
the  variou*  chronometers,  as  dials,  hour-glasses,  clocks, 
watches,  etc.  lu  no  one  of  these  diversities  in  quantity  can 
any  mensuration  be  absolute,  but  only  as  a  j-eference  com- 
parative with  some  common  standai'd. 

2.  It  is  a  jyrioi'i  manifest  that  all  quantity  may  be  divisi- 
ble beyond  any  possible  experience,  both  in  amount,  extent, 
f*ni  duration.  The  intensity  may  be  any  amount  of  all  pos- 
sible degrees  at  any  place  and  in  any  time.  A  given  amount 
of  light,  or  of  heat,  may  thus  be  diminished  in  the  same 
place  to  any  assignable  degree,  and  yet  the  space  in  extent 
be  still  a  plenum ;  nor  can  this  be  so  far  carried  in  any 
experiment,  that  it  may  not  be  conceived  as  yet  possible  to 
go  further  in  the  exhaustion,  without  at  all  inducing  a 
vacuum  in  any  portion  of  the  space.  And  as  in  amount,  so 
also  in  extent ;  the  diversity  in  the  quality  is  as  the  diver- 
sity in  space,  and  hence  no  given  diminution  may  be,  which 
is  not  also  capable  of  a  further  diminution.  And  the  same 
again  in  duration ;  the  diversity  in  the  duration  of  the 
quality  is  as  the  diversity  in  time,  and  hence  no  given  'con- 
traction of  a  period  can  be,  which  may  not  also  be  still  fur- 
ther contracted.  The  process  of  divisibility,  thus,  in  all 
quantity,  is  truly  infinite.  It  can  not  be  cai  ried  out  to  a 
limit  which  has  not  yet  a  limit  beyond. 

3.  While  the  heterogeneous  diversity  may  come  within 
the  operation  of  distinction,  it  is  only  the  homogeneoas 
diversity  that  may  come  within  the  operation  of  conjuno 


142  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA 

tioD ,  The  heterogeneous  in  hind  must  be  a  content  for  the 
8<»nsibihty  in  different  organs,  and  the  constructing  agency 
can  not  thus  conjoin  the  diverse  kinds  in  unity.  A  sound 
and  an  odor  can  not  be  conjoined  in  unity  so  as  to  give  a 
total,  nor  either  of  thesp  with  a  color.  And  the  heterogene- 
ous in  variety  must  be  at  different  times  or  in  different 
places  in  the  same  organ,  and  therefore  incompetent  to  be 
conjoined  in  unity.  A  distinct  bitter  and  sweet  taste,  frag- 
rant and  fetid  odor,  6r  a  red  and  blue  color,  can  not  be  con-; 
joined  in  unity.  The  place  or  period  which  both  occupy 
may  be  conjoined,  or  there  may  be  a  blending  of  the  hetero- 
geneous,  as  in  the  rainbow ;  and  the  whole,  as  undistin* 
guished  quality,  constructed  into  form.  So  also,  and  for 
similar  reasons,  the  different  orders  of  homogeneous  diver- 
sity can  not  be  constructed  in  unity.  The  degrees  of  inten- 
sity may  not  be  conjoined  in  one  form  with  the  points  in 
space,  nor  with  the  instants  in  time;  though  the  same 
(quality  may  separately  admit  of  a  conjunction,  in  all  the 
orders  of  homogeneous  diversity.  A  redness  or  a  hardness 
may  have  degrees  of  intensity,  figure  in  extension,  and  dur- 
ation in  time  ;  but  all  thes(i  must  be  constructed  in  separate 
acts  of  attention. 


OTHER    REPRESENTATIONS    OF   THE   SENSE.  148 


SECTION    V , 

THE   CONCLUSIVE   DETERMINATION    OF   THE   SENSE   IN   ITS 
SUBJECTIVE   IDEA. 

From  an  a  priori  position  we  have  now  passed  in 
review  the  w^hole  field  of  the  sense  in  its  ideal  possibility. 
The  operation  of  Conjunction  for  the  construction  of  pure 
figure  and  period  in  space  and  time  has  been  completely 
expounded,  and  all  definite  forms  which  may  occupy  sp:!-^ 
and  time  determined  as  possible.  Other  forms  for  phenom- 
ena, than  such  as  may  be  constructed  in  space  and  time,  can 
not  be ;  nor  can  these  be  constructed  otherwise  than 
through  the  process  of  conjunction  in  unity,  plurality,  and 
totality.  By  an  a  priori  anticipation  of  content  in  genera^ 
for  the  sensibility,  the  operation  of  Distinction,  for  the  pre- 
cise quality  of  any  phenomenon  which  can  be  given  through 
sensation,  has  also  been  fully  exposed,  and  thereby  the  pos 
sibility  of  all  distinct  qualities  determined.  There  can  not 
be  other  content  for  phenomena  than  that  given  in  sensation, 
and  this  can  not  otherwise  be  discriminated  than  thrpugl 
the  j)rocess  of  distinction  in  reality,  particularity,  and  pecu 
liarity.  By  attaining  all  the  a  priori  orders  of  a  homogene 
ous  diversity  of  which  quality  is  capable,  as  the  intensive, 
the  extensive,  and  the  protensive,  and  the  operation  of  con 
junction  in  its  applicability  to  them  all,  we  have,  moreover 
determined  the  possibiHty  of  ordering  sensation  in  all  the 
forms  which  the  matter  for  phenomena  may  assume.  Quahty 
tan  have  no  forms  but  those  of  quantity,  and  these  can  be 
"wily  of  amount,  extent,  and  duration ;  nor  can  these  be 


144  THESENSEINITSIDEA. 

Otherwise  constructed  than  through  the  process  of  conjunc- 
tion, as  before  determined  in  the  pure  intuition. 

In  these  several  a  priori  conchisions  is  involved  the 
complete  idea  of  all  perception  of  phenomena  in  its  possi- 
bility. An  empirical  intuition  is  thus  possible.  Phenomena 
may  be  given,  as  appearance  distinct  and  definite  in  con- 
sciousness, in  this  manner.  A  Faculty  of  Sense  may  so  be, 
and  perceive  objects.  And  if  objects  are  given  in  space 
and  time,  as  appearance  in  consciousness,  it  must  be  through 
this  same  process  now  a  priori  determined.  The  compre- 
hensive formula  for  expressing  the  Sense  in  its  complete  sub- 
jective Idea,  may  in  conclusion  stand  thus — Sensation  must 
be  discriminated  in  observation^  and  thereby  give  distinct 
quality  as  the  matter — and  this  distinct  quality  must  be 
constructed  in  attention^  and  thereby  give  definite  quantity 
as  the  form — of  the  phe7iomenon. 

It  is  important  to  note,  that  as  yet  we  have  subjective 
idea  only.  There  is  a  complete  conception  of  the  sense, 
and  thus  a  true  thought  but  still  a  void  thought,  and  no 
knowledge  of  the  fiiculty  of  sense  as  an  actual  existence. 
It  is  cognition  to  this  degree,  that  such  a  faculty  is  deter- 
mined a  priori  to  be  possible  in  conception — the  thought 
is  every  way  self-consistent  and  in  unity — but  as  yet  it  is 
wholly  the  creature  of  the  productive  imagination.  That, 
there  is  any  cause  which  may  give  actual  being  to  such  a 
faculty,  our  complete  possession  of  the  idea  by  no  means 
enables  us  to  affirm.  This  only  is  determined — the  arche- 
type after  which  the  sense  must  be  molded,  if  any  causa- 
tion generate  such  an  existing  faculty  of  intelligence.  In 
our  subjective  imagination,  we  make  it  to  seem,  but  we  have 
not  in  our  consciousness  made  it  to  appear. 


OTHER    KEPEESENTATIONS    OF   THE    SEXSE.    145 

It  may,  perhaps,  conduce  to  give  greater  distinctness, 
though  not  more  completeness,  t')  this  subjective  idea  of 
the  sense,  if  we  add  here  some  of  the  representations  made 
of  it  by  distinguished  Philosophical  Thinkers.  As  the  first 
and  lowest  form  of  intellectual  action  it  is  important  that 
we  apprehend  it  aright,  and  so  be  competent  to  make  the 
sharp  distinctions  which  separate  it  from  higher  faculties, 
a^  well  as  that  we  may  attain  an  adequate  comprehension  of 
it  m  itself. 

The  very  ingenious  representation  given  by  Plato,  in  the 
Republic,  Book  VII.,  commonly  little  understood  or  rather 
often  misunderstood,  is  worthy  of  our  first  notice.  In  the 
latter  part  of  Book  VI.  he  has  been  speaking  of  the  Good^ 
which,  as  supreme  and  absolute,  can  not  be  brought  within 
any  forms  of  representation  but  can  only  be  affirmed  through 
analogies,  and  he  represents  that  pure  science  has  the  same 
relation  to  it,  that  our  knowledge  of  phenomena  in  sense 
has  to  pure  science.  The  intelligible  species  has  reference 
to  the  goodi  as  the  sensible  species  has  to  the  intelligible ; 
and  his  resemblance  of  both  in  their  analogy  according  to 
the  Pythagorean  mode,  is  by  the  division  of  a  mathematical 
line.  Let  a  line  be  divided  unequally,  and  then  divide  again 
both  these  unequal  parts  in  a  ratio  in  each  to  the  original 
division  of  the  whole ;  and  when  these  parts,  in  their  pro- 
portional divisions,  are  set  over  one  against  the  other,  the 
larger  in  its  proportional  division  may  be  taken  to  represent 
the  intelligible,  and  the  smaller  in  its  proportional  division 
the  sensible  species.  The  first  has  its  own  larger  division, 
and  this  represents  pure  intellect  or  reason  giving  the  axioms 
and  a  priori  truths  as  the  foundations  of  pure  science ;  and 
it  also  has  its  smaller  division,  which  represents  the  inteUi- 


146  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

gible  process,  or  dianoetic  part,  in  a  pure  geometrical  or 
mathematical  demonstration.  The  second  has  also  its  larger 
division,  and  this  represents  the  generalization  which  as  uni. 
versal  rule  is  assumed  from  some  broad  induction  of  parti- 
cular cases;  and  moreover  this  has  its  smaller  division, 
which  represents  the  sensible  phenomena  themselves  as  the 
facts  in  the  induction.  We  have  then  the  empirical  facts 
given  in  sense,  and  which  are  the  mere  phenomenal  shadows 
and  hnages  of  the  things  themselves — and  these  bound  up 
in  an  assumed  general  laAV,  which  can  have  verification  no 
further  than  the  inductive  experience  reaches,  and  is  thus  as 
universal  law  resting  upon  hypothesis  and  faith  only  and 
not  science — to  be  represented  under  the  divisions  of  the 
smaller  part  of  the  original  line :  and  then  we  have  the  suc- 
cessive steps  of  a  mathematical  demonstration,  and  which 
are  pure  intuition — and  these,  held  in  their  axioms  and  neces- 
sary truths  of  the  pure  reason,  giving  rational  science — to 
be  represented  under  the  divisions  of  the  larger  portion  of 
the  original  line.  And  now,  the  inductive  science  of  the 
former  is  analogous  to  the  rational  science  of  the  latter,  in 
this  respect,  that  the  inductive  is  the  mere  resemblance  of 
the  rational,  as  the  rational  is  the  archetypal  emission,  or 
educed  paradigm,  of  the  absolute  and  ineffable  Good. 

From  this,  in  the  beginning  of  Book  YII.  Plato  proceeds 
to  the  representation  which  is  of  immediate  interest  in  the 
present  place.  For  the  purpose  of  showing  how  far  short 
of  true  science  all  attainments  of  sense  must  be,  he  gives 
his  conception  of  what  the  sense  is  in  the  ingenious  repre- 
sentation referred  to.  A  subterraneous  Dwelling  is  adduced 
with  an  entrance  expanding  to  the  light  and  giving  an  open- 
ing to  the  entire  cave.     The  persons  within  are  chained  by 


OTHER  REPRESENTATIONS  OF  THE  SENSE.  HY 

the  neck  so  as  to  be  unable  to  look  except  upon  the  wall  of 
the  cavern  opposite  to  the  opening.  A  bright  light  without, 
far  above  and  behind  them,  illum-nes  the  opposite  wall,  and 
a  road,  over  which  perpetually  passes  men  bearing  statues 
and  vessels  and  figures  of  all  animated  and  material  nature, 
lies  along  without  the  cave  and  between  the  bright  light 
and  the  entrance.  The  shadows  of  all  these  passing  figures 
projected  upon  the  opposite  wall  are  seen  by  the  dwellers 
within,  and  any  voices  of  the  world  without  come  to  them 
only  as  echoes  from  the  cavern  wall,  and  seemingly  as  the 
voices  of  the  moving  shadows.  To  them,  thus,  nothing  is 
true  but  shadows  and  echoes.  These  they  regard  intently, 
watchmg  their  appearance,  and  deducing  the  general  laws 
of  their  successions  and  changes. 

Should  one  suddenly  be  loosed  and  turned  towards  the 
light,  he  would  be  wholly  confounded,  and  it  would  be  long 
before  he  could  comprehend  the  true  position  of  things, 
know  the  realities,  and  bear  the  direct  splendor  of  the  sun- 
light in  open  vision.  When  this  was  thoroughly  effected, 
and  he  should  again  talk  with  the  chained  inmates  of  the 
cave,  his  pure  knowledge  would  be  but  transcendental  rav- 
ings for  them,  inasmuch  as  to  the  prisoners  of  sense  the 
eternal  verities  above  sense  are  but  simply  as  7?o?zsense. 
How  sincerely  would  he  pity  their  conceited  empiricism ! 
How  willingly  would  he  forego  all  the  encomiums,  honors, 
and  rewards  which  they  were  lavishing  upon  any  who  more 
acutely  observed  the  passing  shadows,  discovered  a  new 
one,  or  best  remembered  how  they  were  wont  to  succeed 
<3ach  other  or  appear  together !  This  is  an  outline  of  the 
method  in  which  Plato  exhibits  the  manner  of  phenomenal 
appearance,  and  to  which  it  might  be  added,  that  to  each 


148  THESENSEIXITSIDEA. 

prisoner  his  own  shadow  is  all  that  he  can  make  of  himself 
to  be  objective  to  his  own  vision.  The  quahties  of  things 
perpetually  occupy  the  attention,  and  the  sense  is  forced  to 
absorb  its  entire  functions  in  attaining  the  appearances  of 
things,  while  a  rational  philosophy  alone  can  reach  the  living 
and  eternally  abiding  verities. 

A  position  for  an  a  priori  investigation  of  the  sense 
would  be  given  in  this  imagined  cave  of  Plato,  by  suppos- 
ing the  man  who  had  attained  to  the  realities  of  things  in 
the  bright  sunlight  without,  to  come  and  sit  down  before 
the  vacant  back-wall  of  the  cavern,  and  from  the  conditional 
principles  of  the  transmitted  light  from  without,  determine 
how  the  shadows  must  there  arrange  themselves,  in  any  an- 
ticipation of  an  inner  content  being  given. 

But  a  more  complete  illustration  is  given  in  some  of  the 
suggested  analogies  by  Coleridge,  in  which,  for  the  wall  of 
the  cave,  we  substitute  a  broad  mirror.  There  will  be  the 
resemblance  of  whatever  comes  before  the  mirror,  to  the  eye 
placed  in  a  proper  position ;  and  so  far  as  the  mirror  reveals 
the  appearance,  it  can  only  be  the  resemblance  of  the  thing 
and  not  the  thing  itself  The  eye,  thus,  is  to  the  mirror,  as 
the  intellect  to  the  sensibility.  The  mirror  has  its  own  pure 
space,  as  primitive  intuition  ;  but  that  space  is  subjective  to 
the  mirror,  and  of  no  significancy  to  the  thing  itself  which 
may  give  its  resemblance  within  it.  Some  content  must  be 
given  to  the  mirror,  or  no  resemblance  can  appear  ;  nor  can 
this  appearance  be  the  thing  itself,  but  only  a  phenomenal 
envisagement  of  it.  The  eye  can  by  no  means  see  itself,  but 
only  its  resemblance.  A  faculty  for  perceiving  the  thing, 
and  not  merely  its  resemblance,  would  demand  the  capacity 
to  receive  and  construct  the  content  into  form,  other  than 


OTHER   EEPRESEJfTATIONS    OF  THE   SENSE.  149 

witliin  the  illuminated  space  of  the  mirror ;  or,  that  the 
mirror  should  become  transparent,  and  the  thing  appre- 
hended directly  through  it. 

As  analogy  for  the  subjective  idea  of  the  sense,  the  mir- 
ror only  is  conceived,  and  its  content  taken  as  anticipation 
in  general ;  and  then,  from  the  conditioning  principles  of  all 
reflection  and  representation  of  images,  an  a  priori  deter- 
mination is  made,  of  how  the  resemblances  of  things  in  a 
mirror  is  possible.  This  will  give  the  complete  thought  of 
how  any  resemblance  of  things  may  be,  but  this  can  be  only 
an  imaginary  seetniny  for  the  subject  thinking,  and  not  any 
appearance  either  for  himself  or  others. 

The  method  of  Kant  is  to  give  the  functions  of  the 
sense,  not  by  any  illustration,  but  in  a  direct  statement  of 
the  process  of  perception.  With  his  terminology  fully  un- 
derstood, there  is  no  further  difficulty  in  attaining  his  mean- 
ing than  what  is  necessarily  incidental  to  so  abstruse  a 
subject.  With  him  the  sense  is  solely  the  faculty  of  envis- 
agement,  or  of  representing  things  themselves  in  their  phe- 
nomenal appearances.  The  intellectual  operations  of  dis- 
criminating and  constructing,  he  refers  to  the  work  of  the 
understanding ;  and  thus  excludes  from  the  functions  of  the 
sense,  that  which  gives  distinctness  and  definiteness  of  fig. 
ure  to  the  phenomenon.  The  sense  is  the  illuminated  wall 
of  the  cave,  or  the  reflecting  surfice  of  the  mirror ;  but  the 
chained  prisoner,  or  the  fixed  eye  before  the  mirror,  is  the 
conjoining  agent,  not  as  in  the  field  of  the  sense  but  in  the 
field  of  the  understanding,  and  this  operation  of  conjunc- 
tion is  not  at  all  distinguished  from  an  operation  of  connec- 
tion, which  we  shall  hereafter  see  is  the  alone  proper  work 
of  the  understanding. 


150  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

With  this  functional  instrumentality  for  envisaging, 
which  the  organism  of  sense  supplies,  the  process  of  percep- 
tion, as  a  work  to  be  accomplished,  then  goes  on  in  the 
understanding ;  and  it  is  simply  his  method  of  describing 
the  operation  of  conjunction,  which  we  have  already  given 
after  our  manner  of  investigation.  The  conjunction  of  the 
content  in  sense  gives  to  it  unity ;  and  that  there  may  be 
this  unity  in  the  product,  it  is  necessary  that  there  be  a 
higher  unity  in  the  understanding  agency  producing  it. 
Tills  unity  in  the  product,  he  terms  "  Synthetic  Unity,"  or, 
inasmuch  as  it  is  one  member  in  his  category  of  quantity, 
sometimes  he  calls  it  the  "  Categorical  Unity."  The  higher 
unity  in  the  understanding,  inasmuch  as  it  gives  the  unity 
to  all  quality  as  product,  is  termed  "  Qualitative  Unity." 
In  this  higher  unity  lies  the  capacity  to  accompany  all  rep- 
resentations, so  that  each  may,  to  the  mind,  be  its  represen- 
tation and  thus  all  be  in  one  consciousness.  This  accom- 
panying and  uniting  all  representations  in  one  consciousness, 
and  which  yet  can  not  itself  be  represented  in  any  appear- 
ance, he  calls  technically  the  "  I  think  /"  and  there  is  thus 
the  same  "  I  think "  for  every  representation,  and  which 
holds  all  in  its  own  original  unity.  This  he  terms  "  the 
original  unity  of  apperception.^''  Except  for  this  original 
unity  of  apperception,  every  representation  would  have  its 
own  separate  "  I  think ;"  and  therefore,  as  he  says,  "  I 
should  have  as  many  colored  different  a  self  as  I  have  repre- 
sentations of  which  I  am  conscious."  This  bringing  of  all 
representations  under  the  one  "  I  think,"  is  the  highest  prin- 
oiple  of  all  cognition,  and  the  faculty  in  virtue  of  which  wo 
&re  comj^etent  to  unite  the  diverse  in  one,  and,  therefore,  as 
in  one  consciousness,  make  each  representation  to  be  an  ob» 


OTUEB  REPKESENTATIONS  OF  THE  SENSE.  151 

ject  as  my  object.  "It  is  the  highest  point  to  ^vhich  we 
must  aUacli  all  use  of  the  understanding ;  in  fact  this  is  the 
understanding  itself." 

We  ^rill  refer  here  but  to  one  other  explanation  of  the 
function  which  brings  phenomena  into  distinct  conscious- 
ness, and  thus  would  render  the  perceptions  of  the  sense 
intelligible,  and  that  is  the  method  given  by  Descartes, 

His  whole  theory  is  contained  in  the  germ  which  has  its 
concise  expression  in  the  noted  formula  "  Cogito  ergo  sum.^^ 
This  has  been  interpreted  in  two  ways,  having  their  mean- 
ing and  use  very  distinct  from  each  other.  One  makes  it  xo 
be  a  logical  proof  of  the  reality  of  my  existence.  It  is  i  \ 
ontological  syllogism,  and  concludes  in  the  demonstration  of 
real  being.  Now,  in  this  method  of  interpretation,  and  which 
has  been  the  most  commonly  made,  it  has  really  no  interest 
in,  nor  connection  with,  any  inquiry  after  the  functions  of 
the  sense.  Its  sole  use  is  to  prove  the  real  being  of  myself. 
But  it  may  be  proper,  here,  to  say  that  in  any  such  appUca- 
tion,  it  can  be  nothing  other  than  an  empty  sophism.  It 
covers  an  absurdity,  and  has  thus  no  logical  force  except  in 
its  delusion.  If  we  postulate  "  the  thinking^''  and  would 
thence  deduce  the  I  as  existing  self,  the  conclusion  is  a  yion 
sequitiu\  inasmuch  as  the  fact  of  a  phenomenon  of  thinking 
does  not  give  the  existence  of  the  subject  which  thinks. 
And  if  we  say  "  I  thinh^''  meaning — myself  to  exist  think- 
ing— the  whole  is  a  petitio  principii  y  inasmuch  as  the  exist- 
ence of  the  /  who  thinks  is  the  very  thing  to  be  proved. 

But  another  interpretation  brings  it  directly  witliin  our 
present  use,  as  explanatory  of  the  process  for  attaining  to 
distinct  consciousness.  The  "  Cogito,"  in  this  meaning, 
simply  involves  the  process  by  which  I  come  to  know  my- 


152  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

sel^,  or  tD  awake  in  self-consciousness.  By  the  act  of  think- 
ing I  come  into  a  state  of  self-consciousness.  I  think — 
meaning  thereby  that  I  perfoi-m  the  intellectual  operation  of 
conjunction  already  d  priori  given,  ^.  e.,  I  attend — and 
thereby  construct  definite  objects  in  consciousness ;  and 
such  subjective  operation,  giving  such  objective  phenom- 
enon, determines  a  distinction  of  my  object  from  mys*^.*^!  as 
subject.  By  thinking,  I  find  myself.  Cogito,  ergc  cwr>,  not 
2,s  process  of  logical  demonstration  that  I  exist,  bu'.;  uj  prac- 
I'cal  process  of  coming  into  self-consciousness.  A  letter 
fi  om  Descartes  himself  to  Gassendi  would  seem  to  fix  this 
last  meaning,  as  that  which  the  author  intended.  "The 
very  moment  there  are  phenomena  of  any  kind  within  our 
consciousness,  that  moment  the  mind  becomes  cognizant  of 
its  own  existence;  and  that  were  there  no  consciousness, 
there  would  be  no  possible  evidence  of  the  existence  of  an 
intelligent  principle.  The  scientific  form  of  this  truth  was 
meant  to  be  presented  in  the  sentence,  Gogito^  ergo  sum.'''' 

Here,  then,  w^e  conchide  our  first  Chapter  in  the  Sense, 
embracing  the  two  divisions  of  the  pure  and  the  empirical 
Intuition.  We  have  a  completed  Idea  of  how  a  faculty  of 
sense  for  perceiving  phenomena  in  consciousness  may  be. 
The  whole  is  a  seeming  in  the  Imagination,  and  not  an 
appearing  in  Consciousness;  and  is  thus  subjective  only. 
Yet  is  the  completed  thought  no  fanciful  and  arbitrary  com- 
bination  of  conceptions,  but  attained  altogether  through 
conditions  necessary  and  universal.  While  we  know  that 
the  product  is  ideal  only,  we  know  also  that  so  the  real  is 
possible ;  and  if  at  all  actual,  that  so  it  must  be. 

It  yet  remains  to  find  this  whole  process  of  the  sense,  as 
now  a  priori  determined  in  its  subjective  idea,  in  actual 


OTHEE    REPRESENTATIONS    OF   THE   SENSE.    153 

oeing  and  operation.  The  facts  must  be  gathered,  in  which 
we  can  ascertain  a  Law  of  perception  as  binding  them  up 
within  itself,  and  expounding  tlieir  being  and  combination. 
And  when  such  Hw,  as  objective  in  the  facts,  is  determined 
to  be  in  full  accordance  and  correlation  with  the  subjective 
idea,  wp.  shall  have  answered  the  claims  of  a  criterion  of 
science,  ana  may  of  right  take  possession  of  the  whole  field 
of  the  sense  in  the  name  of  philosophy.  This  will  now  be 
the  business  for  our  Second  Chapter  of  the  Sense. 

7* 


CHAPTEE    I  I. 

THE  SENSE  IN  ITS  OBJECTIVE  LAW. 


SECTION    I 


rEANSCENDENTAL   SCIENCE   IS   CONDITIONED    UPON  A   LAW   IS 
THE   FACTS   CONFORMED   TO   AN   A    PRIORI   IDEA. 

An  arbitrary  conjunction  of  diverse  particulars,  or  such 
particulars  thrown  together  at  random,  would  giv^e  a  com- 
bination that  could  have  no  consistency  or  significance  ;  but 
when  constructed  according  to  the  determination  of  some 
d  priori  conception,  the  whole  will  have  an  intelligent  sys- 
tematic unity  and  be  a  significant  and  self-consistent  pro- 
duct. This  conjunction  may  be  made  purely  in  the  produc- 
tive imagination  and  the  product  be  only  ideal,  yet  will  the 
pure  thought  have  its  intelligible  meaning.  Thus  a  random 
aggregation  of  all  the  elementary  conceptions  which  should 
go  to  the  composition  of  a  steam-engine  would  have  no  sig- 
nification, yet  when  combined  according  to  the  determining 
principle  of  such  machinery,  the  whole  would  be  a  self-con- 
sistent thought,  and  contain  in  its  unity  the  complete  Idea 
of  the  steam-engine.  It  would  give  the  science  of  what  is 
possible  to  be  when  the  conditions  are  supplied. 

But  a  science  of  the  actual  can  be  attained  only  in  the 
facts  themselves.     The  consistent  thought  can  not  determine 


TRANSCENDENTAL     SCIENCE,     ETC.  155 

that  the  actual  thing  shall  be.  There  must  for  this  be  both 
the  materials  and  the  maker.  If  the  materials  can  not  be 
found  the  consistent  thought  can  have  no  expression,  and  if 
the  materials  are  given  they  can  not  constitute  the  thing 
until  intelUgently  put  together  by  the  maker.  The  ideal 
steam-engine  is  but  a  void  thought ;  the  materials  for  a 
steam-engine  are  yet  void  of  thought ;  the  materials  put  to- 
gether by  thought  become  an  intelligihU  thing ;  and  the 
void  thought,  as  Idea,  carried  through  and  conforming  to 
the  thought,  as  the  Law,  in  the  thing  becomes  science. 

But  science  is  still  of  two  distinct  kinds.  All  science 
has  th6  correlation  of  Idea  and  Law,  but  the  idea  may  itself 
be  an  empirical  fact  or  an  a  priori  principle,  and  the  science 
is  to  be  distinguished  in  kind  accordingly.  If  the  Idea  is 
still  indeterminate,  there  is  no  science  and  at  the  best  only 
mere  opinion ;  If  the  Idea  is  but  a  fact  found  from  experi- 
ment, there  is  empirical  or  Inductive  Science ;  but  if  the 
Idea  is  an  a  priori  truth  and  thus  a  jjrinciple  in  its  own 
light  necessary  and  universal,  there  is  then  Science  of  the 
highest  kind,  viz.,  rational  or  transcendental  science. 

Examples  illustrative  of  the  above  positions  may  be 
given  for  the  science  of  planetary  systems.  The  hypothesis 
may  be  taken  that  the  planets  were  originally  component 
portions  of  the  sun,  and  that  they  have  been  stricken  off 
successively  from  the  surface  of  the  molten  mass  by  the  im- 
pinging of  comets  upon  it  in  their  perihelion  passage.  But 
as  such  hypothesis  can  not  be  determined  as  fact,  there  can 
be  no  determined  accordance  of  Idea  and  Law,  and  there- 
fore no  science.  It  is  a  mere  guess,  or  at  the  best  a  more 
or  less  probable  opinion. 

But  when  the  grand  thought  was  attained  by  the  genius 


156  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    LAW. 

of  Newton  that  perhaps  all  matter  gravitates  toward  all 
other  matter,  and  a  broad  induction  found  the  facts  con- 
formable, and  that  the  ratio  was  directly  as  the  quantity  of 
matter  and  inversely  as  the  squares  of  the  distances,  then 
was  there  a  science  of  planetary  systems  in  the  complete 
conformity  of  idea  and  law.  The  one  thought  simple  as 
truth,  universal  as  matter,  convincing  as  light,  could  then  be 
applied  to  reconcile  all  paradoxes,  expound  all  anomalies, 
and  combine  in  harmony  the  facts  of  all  past  and  future  ob- 
servation. Further  discoverers  may  work  on  under  this  law 
tlircugh  coming  generations,  but  the  whole  pathway  was 
determined  and  the  science  comprehended  in  the  thought  of 
Newton. 

But  genuine  as  is  this  science  of  the  planetary  worlds  it 
is  mdactive  science  only.  It  has  assumed  that  there  is  a 
uniformity  through  nature,  and  from  a  broad  though  still 
partial  induction  it  has  deduced  the  universal  fact  of  gravi- 
tation and  its  ratios,  and  should  it  be  admitted  that  the  de- 
duction is  valid  and  the  fact  of  gravitation  correctly  attained 
for  the  whole  universe  of  matter,  yet  would  that  fact  be  still 
inexplicable,  and  stand  out  as  a  mere  arbitrary  making  with 
no  rational  principle  to  expound  why  it  was  thus  and  not 
otherwise.  The  fact  being  thus,  planetary  systems  must  be 
thus,  but  so  long  as  the  fact  has  no  expository  principle,  na- 
ture itself  has  no  rational  interpretation,  and  we  have  a 
science  of  nature  only  in  a  Law  which  is  to  us  wholly  desti- 
tute of  all  reason. 

But  suppose  the  practicability  of  attaining,  in  the  neces. 
sary  conception  of  force  itself,  the  a  priori  Idea  of  gravita^ 
tion  just  as  the  Maker  of  the  universe  had  it  in  the  morning 
of  creation,  and  that  if  matter  exist  at  all  it  must  be  in  a 


TRANSCEXDEXTAL     SCIENCE,      ETC.         157 

force  which  shall  have  just  such  ratios  and  work  out  just 
such  universal  relations,  and  then  we  shall  have  a  science 
whose  highest  law  is  no  fact,  or  thing  made,  but  a  necessary 
principle  determining  in  its  own  light  the  whole  making. 
Such  a  stand-point  would  transcend  all  experiment,  and  de- 
termine in  the  necessary  Idea  what  the  Universal  law  must 
be,  and  would  thus  give  a  transcendental  science.  Such  a 
stand-point  and  thus  such  an  a  priori  science  there  certainly 
is,  so  sure  as  the  universe  is  rationally  and  not  arbitrarily 
made ;  and  its  attainment  by  the  human  mind  is  not  hope- 
lessly impracticable.  But  whether  this  be  attainable  or  not 
in  the  human  science  of  planetary  systems,  such  a  priori 
Idea  for  all  possible  functions  of  a  Sense,  which  may  give  its 
phenomena  distinct  in  quality  and  definite  in  quantity,  has 
been  now  already  found. 

This,  it  is  true,  is  as  yet  given  only  in  Idea,  and  is  a  sys- 
tematic thought  only  in  the  mind's  own  apprehension  of  it, 
but  the  labor  in  attaining  it  has  by  no  means  been  thrown 
away.  It  determines  for  us  a  position  relative  to  all  facts  of 
perception  in  sense,  as  would  an  a  priori  idea  of  gravitation 
as  above,  determine  our  standing  in  reference  to  all  the  dis, 
tinctive  facts  of  planetary  systems.  It  enables  us  to  say 
what  the  law  must  be  as  conditional  that  the  facts  may  be, 
and  therefore  in  finding  the  facts  which  have  their  actual  law 
correlative  to  such  idea,  it  enables  us  to  give  an  every  w^ay 
rational  exposition  of  our  know^ledge  of  such  facts,  and 
which  is  more  than  an  inductive,  even  an  a  priori  demon- 
strated science.  Without  such  a  rational  investigation  of 
the  functions  of  sense  it  might  certainly  be  very  long  ere  we 
should  attain  to  an  inductive  science  of  perception.  The 
phenomena  given  in  sense  might  indefinitely  in  the  future  as 


158  THESENSEIXITSLAT^^. 

already  in  the  past  be  observed  and  classified  under  fanciful 
or  arbitrary  forms  of  arrangement,  without  laying  hold  upon 
any  systematic  thought  which  should  bind  up  the  facts  in 
any  scientific  arrangement.  But  now  such  attained  Idea 
gives  at  once  a  determined  universal  Law. 

And  here,  the  remaining  task  in  this  First  Part  of  our 
undertaking  is,  to  find  the  Law  in  the  facts  of  the  se7ise 
vjhich  shall  be  correlative  with  our  attained  a  priori  Idea. 
We  will  proceed  with  this  a  priori  Idea  as  we  should  in  an 
Inductive  process  with  any  hypothesis,  and  for  the  present 
use  it  only  as  our  guide  to  go  out  through  the  phenomena 
of  the  senses  and  thus  intelligently  to  question  nature.  And 
this  we  will  do  in  two  ways  as  the  modified  forms  of  sub- 
stantially the  same  method,  and  yet  tending  thereby  the 
more  completely  to  establish  the  conviction  of  the  conclu- 
siveness of  the  induction.  In  one  way  we  will  take  the 
Idea  and  gather  the  facts  as  they  readily  admit  of  being 
bound  up  together  by  it,  and  which  we  will  term  The  Colli- 
gation of  Facts.  In  the  other  we  shall  take  apparently 
quite  distant  and  disconnected  facts,  and  yet  see  them  unex- 
pectedly leaping  within  the  Idea  as  their  LaAV,  and  which 
wo  will  term  The  Consilience  of  Facts.  We  shall  thus  fully 
find  that  our  attained  Idea  of  the  possible  is  the  correlative 
to  the  manifest  Law  of  the  actual. 


COLLIGATION    OF    FACTS. 

SECTION    II. 

THE    COLLIGATION    OF    FACTS. 

Wden  any  self-consistent  idea,  at  first  hypothetically 
assumed,  may  be  so  applied  to  many  diiferent  facts  as  to 
bring  them  all  in  unity  within  its  circumscription,  and  bind 
them  within  itself  that  they  may  thereby  belong  to  one  or- 
ganized system,  each  portion  of  which  may  be  adequately 
expounded  as  determined  in  its  place  by  this  applied  idea, 
we  have  then  an  instance  of  what  is  termed  a  Colligation  ol 
Facts.  In  such  a  result  we  no  longer  hold  our  applied  idea 
to  be  hypothesis,  but  affirm  that  the  facts  themselves  must 
possess  within  them  a  formative  principle,  which  has  con- 
trolled in  their  production  and  is  the  complete  correlate  to 
this  idea  which  we  have  applied  to  them  and  that  has  col- 
lected and  expounded  them  so  completely ;  and  that,  there 
fore,  there  is  within  them  an  actual  law,  the  exact  counter- 
part of  our  applied  idea.  We  now  proceed  in  this  way  with 
our  a  priori  attained  idea  of  the  sense,  to  apply  it  to  vari- 
ous facts  in  the  process  of  perception  as  actually  occurring 
in  experience,  and  in  proportion  as  we  find  it  to  hold  these 
facts  in  colligation,  and  thus  expound  their  peculiarities, 
shall  we  be  competent  to  affirm  that  we  have  found  the  law 
which  must  inherently  have  regulated  their  formation,  and 
which  thus  really  exists  as  embodied  within  them.  This 
law  thus  found,  as  the  exact  correlate  of  the  idea,  enables 
us  completely  to  explain  our  knowledge  of  the  appearances 
in  the  facts,  and  thus  becomes  properly  a  science  of  the 
facts. 


I*j0  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    LAW. 

Yfe  do  not  now  insist  upon  the  necessity  and  universality 
of  the  idea,  as  having  been  attained  through  an  d  priori 
process,  but  are  willing  to  use  it  for  the  present  as  mere 
hypothesis  for  interrogating  experience,  and  ascertaining 
how  completely  it  may  collect  the  facts  within  itself.  If  it 
be  found  to  possess  the  power  of  such  colligation,  it  would, 
as  mere  hypothesis,  be  then  verified  and  give  to  us  a  science 
as  valid  as  any  induction  could  afford ;  but  we  may  then 
bring  out  its  a  priori  characteristics  of  necessity  and  uni- 
versality, and  thereby  give  to  the  science  a  much  higher 
foundation  than  in  simple  induction,  viz.,  that  of  a  transcen- 
dental demonstration. 

The  idea,  therefore,  which  we  now  adopt  as  hypothesis 
is,  that  all  the  facts  in  the  process  of  perception  must  stand 
within  the  law  which  demands  the  intellectual  operations  of 
Distinction  of  quality  and  Conjunction  of  quantity  ;  and 
consequently  that  where  this  law  is  complied  with  in  its 
demands,  there  is  clear  perception.  The  process  of  applica- 
tion might  be  to  take  any  facts  in  the  perceiving  of  phen- 
omena, promiscuously  as  they  might  come  to  hand,  and  dis- 
pose of  them  within  the  circumscription  of  our  hypothesis 
as  the  facts  themselves  might  permit ;  but  the  more  philoso- 
phical and  satisfactory  course  must  be  to  order  our  induc- 
tion of  ficts  under  separate  heads,  and  see  how  completely 
tlie  hypothesis  binds  up  all  the  varieties  of  facts  under  the 
different  captions.  We  shall  make  the  induction  sufficiently 
comprehensive  to  be  a  safe  ground  for  deducing  a  real  law 
and  not  a  mere  casual  coincidence,  but  yet  with  no  attempt 
to  exhaust  the  facts ;  other  minds  may  pursue  the  same  pro 
cess  to  an  indefinite  extent,  as  far  as  any  facts  which  an 
experience  in  sense  may  furnish. 


COLLIGATION    OF    FACTS.  161 

1.  Facts  connected  icith  obscure  perception. — A  great 
variety  of  facts  may  be  attained  connected  with  some 
obscurity  in  the  perceptions  of  the  sense,  and  which  have 
led  to  popular  methods  of  accounting  for  the  obscurity  on  a 
great  variety  of  grounds,  but  when  carefully  examined  they 
will  all  stand  within  the  circumscription  of  our  hypotliesis, 
as  the  highest  and  most  comprehensive  reason  which  can  be 
given,  viz.,  that  either  the  operation  of  Distinction  in 
quality  or  that  of  Conjunction  in  quantity  could  not  be 
accurately  and  completely  effected.  Sometimes  it  may  be 
said  that  the  sensibility  of  the  organ  is  impaired ;  or  that 
the  medium  through  which  the  content  is  given,  as  the  light, 
or  air,  etc.,  is  defective  ;  or  that  the  object  is  too  minute,  too 
far  in  the  distance,  too  much  confused  amid  other  things,  or 
glancing  upon  the  sensibility  too  transiently ;  or  that  the 
mind  was  too  intently  engrossed  with  some  other  occupa- 
tion ;  but  all  these  and  other  popular  reasons  for  the  obscu- 
rity will  at  last  resolve  themselves  into  this — the  intellect 
did  not  exactly  distinguish,  or  did  not  completely  construct 
them.  It  might  be  easy  to  arrange  our  facts  under  the 
separate  heads,  so  that  the  obscurity  from  indistinctness  and 
that  from  indefiniteness  might  hold  each  their  own  facts,  but 
such  subdivision  is  not  necessary.  The  example  will  in  each 
case  give  immediate  opportunity  for  deciding  to  which,  or 
whether  perhaps  to  both,  it  belongs. 

When  the  eye  rests  upon  some  landscape  replete  with 
diffused  and  diversified  lights  and  shades  and  colors,  we  are 
conscious  of  a  very  inadequate  perception  of  its  different 
objects  until  the  eye  has  roved  over  the  scene  repeatedly 
and  deliberately,  and  as  this,  process  goes  on  the  pen^eption 
comes  out  with  more  and  more  distinctness  of  the  colors, 


162  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    LAW. 

and  more  and  more  definiteness  of  the  figures,  there  pre- 
sented, and  the  obscurity  of  the  first  look  passes  into  clear 
perception.  So,  still  more,  when  we  first  enter  the  thronged 
Street  of  some  strange  city,  from  which  new  and  unaccus- 
tomed sensations  are  veiy  confusedly  given  in  the  thousand 
moving  colors  and  forms  of  men  and  animals  and  carriages, 
and  the  blended  sound  of  feet  and  wheels  and  jaring  wares 
and  percusion  of  tools  and  human  voices  perhaps  of  differ- 
ent languages,  is  it  impracticable  at  once  to  perceive  all,  or 
perhaps  even  any  one  appearance  completely.  Again,  we 
cast  our  eye  upon  the  printed  page  of  a  book,  and  espe- 
cially the  more  to  our  purpose  if  the  characters  belong  to  an 
unknown  language,  and  with  these  multiplied  and  blended 
sensations  of  lines  and  angles  and  curves  and  points,  the  let- 
ters can  not  at  once  stand  forth  as  clear  perception  in  con- 
sciousness. Or,  only  once  more  as  an  example,  when  the 
strains  of  distant  music  from  many  voices  and  instruments 
strike  upon  the  ear,  and  the  complicated  and  modified  har- 
mony is  so  obscure,  that  we  can  not  catch  the  tune  which 
combines  all  these  tones  in  unison,  the  whole  is  but  a  rhap- 
sody of  diverse  noises  in  which  nothing  distinct  and  nothing 
defined  is  perceived.  In  all  these,  it  is  at  once  manifest  that 
the  operations  of  both  distinction  and  conjunction  are  incom- 
plete, and  that  the  obscurity  is  removed  in  proportion  as 
these  operations  are  effected  by  the  intellectual  agency,  nor 
can  any  thing  else  secure  a  clear  perception. 

There  may  be  noticed  also  such  facts  as  the  following: 
A  blending  of  the  quality  so  effectually  that  though  many 
peculiar  varieties  may  be  known  to  be  there,  yet  can  no  t>r!0 
be  distinguished  exactly,  not  even  by  deliberate  trial  o:  th^ 
intellectual  agency.     We  are  conscious  of  the  appearance  of 


COLLIGATION     OF    FACTS.  168 

the  peculiar  colors  in  the  rainbow,  yet  can  we  neither  dis- 
criminate nor  construct  them  precisely,  and  hence  they 
must  remain  confused  and  obscure  in  our  perception,  though 
it  be  easy  to  distinguish  the  whole  bow  from  the  surround- 
ing cloud  and  to  conjoin  it  in  a  definite  figure.  So  we  may 
take  into  our  mouth  food  or  drink  compounded  of  various 
ingredients,  and  while  we  may  be  conscious  of  several  pecu- 
liar tastes,  yet  may  we  not  by  the  greatest  care  distinctly 
separate  them,  nor  completely  conjoin  them  so  as  to  give 
the  amount  and  proportions  of  any. 

And  then,  at  other  times,  not  from  the  confused  blend- 
ing in  the  sensibility,  but  from  the  impracticability  of  attain- 
ing a  complete  outline,  we  have  obscurity  of  perception. 
Thus  the  letters  on  a  distant  sign-board,  or  on  the  stern  of 
some  departing  ship,  or  the  wheel-house  of  a  steamboat 
passing  at  a  distance,  may  be  wholly  illegible  though  the 
colors  as  quality  may  be  very  distinctly  apprehended.  An 
object,  also,  at  the  bottom  of  some  clear  lake  or  stream, 
when  the  surface  is  gently  rufiled  by  a  breeze  or  the  undula- 
tions of  the  current,  may  be  completely  given  in  the  sensa- 
tion, and  the  quality  distinctly  apprehended,  and  yet  it  may 
be  utterly  impossible  that  the  form  should  be  definitely  per- 
ceived. So,  again,  when  the  content  is  given  to  the  eye 
through  the  medium  of  glass  or  crystal,  which  though  trans- 
parent is  so  curdled  and  the  substance  interfused  with 
waving  lines  that  the  sensation  is  interrupted  and  distorted, 
the  quality  may  be  very  well  discriminated  and  distinctly 
perceived,  and  yet  no  function  of  the  sense  may  be  able  to 
give  definite  outline  and  figure  to  the  object. 

And  certainly  all  these  facts  cojne  within  cur  applied 
idea.     Precisely  where  we  can  not  discriminate,  there  we 


164  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    LAW. 

can  not  hav^e  distinct  quality ;  and  where  we  can  not  con- 
struct, there  we  can  not  have  definite  quantity ;  and  when 
either  the  content  or  the  form  is  imperfectly  given,  there  is 
at  once  obscure  perception,  but  which  passes  to  a  clear  per- 
ception immediately  upon  the  completion  of  the  operations 
of  Distinction  and  Conjunction.  The  law  for  the  process 
of  an  actual  perception  is  here  abundantly  realized.  An 
exclusion  made  of  the  law  from  the  process  the  nega- 
tion of  perception  follows,  and  to  just  the  amount  of  the 
exclusion ;  and  the  control  of  the  law  admitted,  there  is  at 
once  a  distinct  and  defined  perception  of  the  object.  The 
hypothesis  as  ideal,  finds  its  counterpart  here  embodied  as  a 
reality. 

We  may  much  enlarge  our  induction,  by  taking  such 
facts  as  are  given  when  only  a  broken  and  incomplete  con- 
tent in  sensation  is  effected.  The  portrait  of  some  person 
may  have  a  portion  of  the  coloring  or  delineation  of  features 
faded  or  defaced  by  age  or  exposure,  and  the  observer  finds 
it  wholly  impracticable  to  perceive  what  peculiar  face  and 
expression  of  countenance  the  original  picture  represented. 
The  intellect  is  incompetent  to  discriminate  and  construct 
from  the  sensation  a  complete  image.  But  an  old  friend 
and  former  companion  of  the  person  represented  may  stand 
before  the  portrait,  and  the  few  faint  lines  and  touches 
which  remain  are  suflScient  to  awaken  long-gone  conceptions 
and  to  quicken  familiar  recollections,  and  at  once  the 
features  of  his  friend  are  there,  glowing  vividly  upon  the 
canvas  as  the  painter  originally  gave  them,  and  he  dwells 
upon  the  picture  with  deep  and  saddened  interest.  The 
well-remembered  countenance  of  the  original  avails  to  the 
intellectual  re-construction  of  the  effaced  lineaments  of  the 


COLLIGATION    OF    FACTS.  165 

painting,  and  what  to  other  eyes  it  were  impossible  to  find 
he  perceives  disthict  and  well  defined,  because  his  own 
agency  has  brought  out  anew  the  faded  colors  and  obscured 
lines  of  the  picture,  and  in  the  restored  portrait  the  Ukeness 
of  his  friend  has  found  a  perfect  resurrection. 

Again,  some  old  manuscript,  or  an  engraving  on  a  monu- 
ment, or  an  ancient  coin  may  be  taken,  some  portions  of 
which  may  have  become  so  obliterated  as  to  be  utterly  unin- 
telligible to  ordinary  readers.  The  sensation  is  too  incom- 
plete for  the  intellectual  agency  to  make  out  the  construc- 
tion, and  if  no  help  be  otherwise  afforded  for  restoring  the 
defaced  portion  there  must  unavoidably  remain  a  perpetual 
hiatus  in  the  record.  But  if  long  habit  in  deciphering 
obscured  inscriptions,  or  an  acquaintance  from  other  sources^ 
of  the  facts  designed  to  be  here  recorded,  help  the  intellec- 
tual agency  along  the  lost  lines  that  it  may  fill  up  the  chasm 
through  itri  faintest  tracings,  the  whole  is  to  that  mind  again 
restored  and  he  reads  again  aright  the  old  record.  To 
a  practiced  antiquary,  even  the  slightest  remnant  of  the 
old  chisel-marks  on  the  monument,  or  the  touches  of  the 
pen  upon  the  parchment,  are  sufficient  for  filling  up  what 
must  otherwise  have  been  unavoidably  wide  gaps  in  the 
inscription.  Champollion  could  read  the  much  efifaced  Hiero- 
gljT^hic  upon  a  Theban  tomb  or  column ;  and  Belzoni,  the 
faint  traces  on  an  Egyptian  papyrus  or  mummy  covering, 
when  to  an  unpracticed  eye  the  whole  was  faded  beyond 
recovery.  The  intellect,  indeed,  fills  up  a  chasm  which  was 
merely  a  void  in  the  sensation,  and  by  re-constructing 
restores  again  the  original,  guided  by  the  content  which  is 
given ;  and  is  an  agency  very  similar  to  that  which,  from 
long  study  in   comparative    anatomy,  enabled    Cuv'wr   to 


166  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    LAW. 

restore  u  complete  antediluvian  animal,  whose  entire  species 
has  long  since  been  extinct,  from  a  solitary  fossil  bone  as  the 
only  remnant  of  the  skeleton. 

Obscure  perceptions,  presenting  what  facts  soever,  will 
invariably  be  found  to  originate  in  an  incompetency  to  dis- 
tinguish quality  when  the  obscurity  relates  to  the  content, 
or  an  incapacity  to  conjoin  the  quantity  when  the  obscurity 
relates  to  the  form  of  the  phenomenon.  The  intellectual 
agency  can  not  go  out  under  the  guidance  of  its  conditional 
law,  and  therefore  the  product  of  a  clear  perception  can  not 
be ;  but  so  soon  as  the  distinguishing  and  conjoining  agency 
may  be  carried  into  complete  execution,  all  obscurity  of 
perception  is  effectually  avoided.  Thus  far  in  our  induc- 
tion, our  hypothesis  collects  all  the  facts  and  binds  them  up 
in  systematic  order,  and  determines  for  us  that  the  law 
actually  embodied  in  the  facts  of  perception  is  the  exact  cor- 
relative of  the  hypothetical  idea  which  we  have  been  apply- 
ing to  them. 

But  we  may  pursue  our  induction  further,  under  an- 
other division  of  facts  connected  with  perception  and  exam- 
ine, 

2.  The  relative  capabilities  of  the  different  organs  of 
sense. — Different^  organs  of  sense  give  their  diverse  sensor 
tions  as  content  for  different  kinds  of  quality,  and  each  in 
its  own  manner  and  degree  as  capable  of  the  operations  cf 
distinction  and  conjunction  to  be  applied  to  it.  The  eye 
receives  its  content  for  colors,  and  the  ear  for  sounds,  etc., 
and  these  may  be  discriminated  and  constructed  according 
as  the  pecuUarity  of  the  sensation  in  the  organ  may  capaci- 
tate for  it.  It  is  not  designed  under  this  division  to  notice 
the  intellectual  agency  in  distinction  so  much  as  in  conjimo- 


COLLIGATION     OP    FACTS.  167 

tion,  as  our  object  must  rather  be  here  to  attain  facts 
which  ro^  eal  their  law  for  form,  than  for  peculiarity  of  the 
content.  If,  then,  we  find  the  facts  to  be  arranged  under 
our  hypothetical  idea,  so  that  the  capability  of  perceiving 
form  or  quantity  through  the  sensation  in  any  particular 
organ,  is  precisely  as  that  organ  is  adapted  for  conforming 
its  functions  in  sensation  to  the  demand  of  our  hypothesis  as 
conditional  for  an  intellectual  construction  of  the  quantity, 
we  shaU  in  a  deeply  interesting  manner  enlarge  our  induc- 
tion of  facts,  whose  actual  law  is  the  correlative  of  our 
hypothetical  idea.  This  will  require  us  to  find  the  facts  thus 
to  be,  that  the  organ  which  from  its  functions  gives  the 
highest  capabilities  for  the  passing  of  the  intellectual  agency 
in  attention  over  the  content  in  sensation,  and  constructing 
it  according  to  the  operation  of  conjunction,  shall  also  be 
capable  of  attaining  to  the  clearest  and  most  complete  per- 
ception of  the  forms  of  its  phenomena,  whether  of  figure  in 
space,  period  in  time,  or  amount  of  intensity  in  the  sensi- 
bility. For  the  purpose  of  thus  questioning  the  facts  in 
experience  on  this  topic,  let  it  be  recollected  that  extension 
in  space  has  three  dimensions,  length,  breadth,  and  thick- 
ness ;  that  prolongation  in  time  has  but  one  measure,  as  in 
the  flowing  along  through  a  series ;  and  that  intensity  in 
amount  has  also  but  one  measure,  as  in  the  line  of  a  contin- 
ually augmenting  sum  of  degrees ;  and  we  shall  be  prepared 
to  go  out  and  gather  the  fixcts  which  we  may  find  under 
this  division. 

We  will  first  look  at  the  relative  capabilities  of  our  or- 
gans of  sense  for  securing  the  perception  of  forms,  as  exten- 
sion in  Space.  The  Eye,  as  the  organ  of  vision,  is  the  most 
compHcated,  and  as  the  result  the  most  comple  ely  adapted 


1C8  THE     SENSE    IN    ITS     LAW. 

organization,  for  securing  the  construction  and  thereby  the 
perception  of  extension  in  the  figures  of  phenomena.  The 
intellect  is  best  capacitated  through  its  sensation  to  attain 
the  most  complete  perceptions  of  the  shapes  and  relative 
positions  of  objects  in  space.  In  order  to  use  the  facts 
which  should  be  gathered  in  this  induction  it  is  necessary 
that  we  take  a  cursory  glance  at  the  material  structure  of 
the  eye.  A  bare  reference  is  sufficient  for  those  who  have 
some  understanding  of  its  internal  structure  and  conforma- 
tion, without  any  minute  descriptions  and  explanations. 
The  entire  organ  of  the  eye,  including  its  component  ele- 
ments of  humors  aqueous  and  vitreous,  its  lens,  its  pupil 
dilating  and  contracting  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of 
light  transmitted,  its  expanded  nervous  membrane  as  the 
retina,  with  the  large  optic  nerve  passing  out  on  the  back 
side  thereof  to  the  brain,  its  complicated  apparatus  of 
muscles  for  moving  the  entire  ball  of  the  eye  or  fixing  it 
steady  in  one  position,  and  its  lid  for  lubrication,  cleansing 
and  protection,  is  altogether  most  skillfully  adapted  to  the 
ends  designed.  The  light  is  admitted  and  the  rays  diffused 
over  a  most  sensitive  surface  w^ithin,  and  forming  the  images 
there  as  on  a  canvas  for  the  use  of  the  intellectual  agent. 
The  sensation  is  therefore  conditioned  by  the  rays  of  light, 
transmitted  by  reflection  from  the  external  object,  which 
give  their  content  for  the  phenomena  in  perception. 

In  this  arrangement  of  the  organ,  the  whole  content  con- 
ditions  itself  both  in  position  and  outline  to  the  place  occu- 
pied upon  the  retina,  and  the  sensation  is  modified  accord- 
ingly. The  whole  field  of  the  sensation  is  spread  out  in 
order,  and  the  constructing  agency  in  attention  may  sponta 
rieously  move  over  the  entire  outlines  given,  and  bring  the 


COLLIGATION    OF    FACTS.  169 

forms  of  every  part  within  the  light  of  consciousness.  The 
content  is  itself  topical  in  the  sensibility  and  the  affection  as 
sensation  conforms  to  it,  and  this  conditions  the  construct- 
ing agency  accordingly,  and  thereby  the  phenomena  are  de- 
termined in  their  particular  and  relative  forms  of  appear, 
ance. 

Moreover,  there  is  this  further  important  fact,  that  in 
one  point  of  the  retina  there  is  a  spot  of  higher  sensibiUty 
than  any  other  portion.  A  small  point  as  a  center  has  this 
acute  sensibility,  and  from  which  on  all  sides  the  sensibiUty 
diminishes.  This  has  been  called  by  physiologists  the  sensi- 
ble spot*  and  is  of  peculiar  significance  in  our  present  induc- 
tion The  muscles  of  the  eye  make  it  competent  in  its  own 
motion  to  bring  any  portion  at  a  time,  and  all  portions  suc- 
cessively, of  the  content  upon  this  sensible  spot  for  a  more 
delifMite  and  complete  sensation.  When  the  occasion  re- 
quires that  the  intellectual  agency  should  make  a  more  nice 
construction,  there  will  be  spontaneously  the  muscular  move- 
ment for  bringing  the  more  delicate  outlines  of  the  content 
upon  ^ihis  susceptible  point  in  the  retina,  and  revolving  it 
there  until  the  most  minute  forms  have  been  accurately  con- 
joinerl.  It  is  this  work  which  gives  to  the  eye  that  peculiar 
searching  motion,  readily  observed  in  another,  and  con- 
sciously noted  in  our  own  experience  when  the  mind  would 
attain  some  perception  very  critically  and  exactly.  When 
the  attempt  is  made  to  give  to  any  object  a  very  close  and 
thorough  inspection,  the  person  may  be  made  quite  conscious 
of  an  nneasy  and  disquieted  feeling  until  his  eye  is  fixed  in 

*  Phil.  Traus.  1823.  Motions  of  the  Eye.  Bell's  Bridgewater  Treat- 
ise. Also,  "Whewell's  Phil,  of  Inductive  Science,  Yol  I.,  p.  119.— Pe^ 
option  of  Space. 

8 


170  THE    CENGE    IN    ITS    LAW. 

the  right  position  toward  the  object,  and  the  attending 
agency  can  move  the  most  accurately  and  completely  over 
the  content  as  this  is  made  to  revolve  upon  the  sensible  spot^ 
and  in  this  way  bring  the  form  into  clearer  and  sharper  out- 
line in  consciousness.  All  that  the  motion  of  the  eye,  and 
the  turning  of  the  head  to  favor  it,  may  take  within  the 
sensibility  of  the  organ  itself,  and  which  in  succession  may 
be  the  whole  hemisphere,  can  in  this  manner  be  successively 
brought  to  revolve  upon  this  sensitive  portion  of  the  retina 
foi  its  more  exact  construction  in  a  perception,  and  the  com- 
pleteness of  the  form  will  be  proportioned  to  the  exactness 
of  such  a  construction.  All  these  facts  in  the  capacity  of 
the  eye  as  organ  for  perceiving  figure  come  remarkably 
within  the  circumscription  of  our  ideal  hypothesis,  and 
manifest  that  their  actual  law  is  in  entire  correlation  with  it. 
But  we  may  extend  our  induction  to  the  facts  given  in 
the  capabilities  of  the  Touch  for  perceiving  form  in  exten- 
sion. The  organization  here  is  not  so  nice  and  complicated 
in  its  arrangements  as  in  that  of  vision,  but  to  the  whole 
amount  of  its  capacity  for  giving  sensation  which  may  be 
conjoined  into  form,  the  facts  come  completely  within  the 
same  hypothesis,  and  evince  for  themselves  the  same  actual 
law.  The  fingers — and  by  use  other  parts  of  the  body  may 
be  made  to  subserve  the  same  ends — are  the  organs  of  sen- 
sibility in  which  are  given  the  sensations  of  touch.  The 
ends  of  the  fingers  have  their  delicate  nervous  expansion 
and  which  also  have  their  connection  with  the  central  senso- 
rium  in  the  brain  by  as  complete  a  medium  as  the  optic 
nerve,  though  a  more  extended  communication  than  that. 
When  these  are  brought  in  contact  with  any  resisting  ob- 
ject, a  content  is  at  once  given  in  the  sensat'on,  and  they 


COLLIGATION     OF    PACTS.  171 

become  as  the  sensible  spot  in  the  eye,  and  condition  the 
attending  agency  in  the  same  manner.  The  content  must 
be  given  to  the  organ  through  its  contact  with  the  outward 
resistance,  and  that  the  form  as  figure  in  space  may  be  per- 
ceived, the  fingers  must  pass  over  this  resisting  object  as  the 
content  in  the  eye  was  made  to  revolve  upon  the  sensible 
spot  in  the  retina,  and  thereby  the  conjoining  operation  is 
efiected  and  the  form  is  completed  in  the  attention.  We  do 
not  here,  however,  find  an  expanded  field  of  the  sensibility 
for  receiving  topically  the  content  for  many  phenomena  at  a 
time,  as  in  vision.  The  broad  landscape,  the  wide  expanse 
of  the  distant  heavens,  with  all  their  complicated  outlines, 
are  not  within  the  capacity  of  this  organ  of  sensibility. 
One  by  one,  and  within  quite  a  hmited  range,  must  the 
objects  gained  by  the  touch  be  perceived,  and  thus  in  com- 
paratively a  narrow  field  alone  is  the  operation  of  construc- 
tion at  any  one  time  carried  on.  But  within  these  limits 
the  perception  of  figure  and  position  by  the  touch  are  very- 
accurate.  When  we  have  constructed  the  form  through  the 
sensation  in  the  eye,  almost  instinctively  do  we  reach  forth  the 
fingers  to  attain  the  content  in  a  new  sensation,  and  subject 
the  same  to  a  new  construction.  Especially  if  the  object  be 
small,  and  near  at  hand,  the  intellect  rejoices  in  the  diversi- 
fied manner  of  construction,  and  the  confirmation  of  percep- 
tion by  two  operations.  The  touch  adds  its  own  definite- 
ness  to  the  shape  as  it  appeared  in  vision.  Though  not  over 
so  broad  a  field,  yet  within  its  own  scope,  the  sense  of  touch 
may  give  form  in  space  as  accurately  as  the  sense  of  sight. 
From  the  habitual  exercise  and  cultivation  of  the  sense  of 
touch,  the  bHnd  attain  to  a  surprising  accuracy  of  percep- 
tion thereby.     They  follow  out  raised  letters  with  their  fin- 


172  THE    SENSE    IN    ITSLAW. 

gers,  and  read  with  almost  the  facility  that  is  given  to 
others  by  the  use  of  their  eyes ;  and  they  have  been  able  to 
trace  the  lines  in  sensation,  such  as  those,  say,  in  nicely 
joined  cabinet  work,  where  all  perception  of  the  eye  com- 
pletely failed. 

We  will  extend  the  induction  to  the  facts  found  in  other 
organs  of  sense,  and  inasmuch  as  we  shall  find  no  capacity 
to  perceive  figure  by  them,  so  we  shall  find  that  they  give 
no  content  in  a  manner  that  the  intellect  can  conjoin  its  di- 
versity, as  extensive^  In  unity.  The  operation  of  conjunc- 
tion can  not  be,  and  therefore  shapes  can  not  by  them  be 
perceived. 

The  organs  of  Hearing  are  on  opposite  sides  of  the  head, 
and  thus  quite  favorable  for  giving  the  content  in  such  a 
manner  that  it  may  be  determined  from  what  direction  the 
sound  has  come.  The  ear  which  has  received  content  in  the 
greatest  intensity  will  of  course  be  an  occasion  for  deciding 
that  the  sound  has  come  from  that  side.  The  modifications 
in  intensity  through  different  experiences  may  afford  the 
ground  for  some  vague  estimate  of  the  distance  from  the 
center  whence  the  undulations  have  proceeded.  All  such 
construction  is  necessarily  comparative,  and  therefore  quite 
imperfect,  and  yet  complete  precisely  in  proportion  to  the 
capacity  of  the  organ  to  furnish  the  content  in  such  a  man- 
ner that  it  may  be  brought  within  an  attending  agency. 
But  this  vague  estimate  of  direction  and  distance  is  all  that 
can  be  secured  of  form  in  space  by  the  organ  of  hearing. 
All  conjoining  into  figure,  and  giving  a  determined  shape 
and  outline  of  object  by  the  ear  is  impracticable.  The  sen- 
sation is  not  so  spread  out  on  any  field,  nor  can  the  organ 
BO  go  over  it  in  contact,  that  the  intellect  may  conjoin  it 


COLLIGATION    OF    FACTS.  178 

uto  shape,  and  give  form  to  the  phenomenon.  The  organi- 
zation may  sometimes  have  its  modifications  in  an  elonga- 
tion or  expansion  of  the  external  portion  of  the  ear,  as  in 
the  horse  or  the  hare,  and  very  probably  also  a  nicer  con- 
struction and  conformation  of  the  inner  ear  may  be  given 
to  some  animals  than  to  others.  The  intensity  of  sound 
may  be  thereby  augmented,  and  direction  and  distance  be 
more  accurately  apprehended.  Such  expansion  of  the  outer 
ear  and  its  easy  movement  in  all  directions  subserves  pre- 
cisely the  same  end  as  the  artificial  ear-trumpet  for  the  deaf, 
by  which  a  greater  volume  of  content  is  brought  within  the 
sensibility.  But  this  avails  nothing  toward  such  a  presenta- 
tion of  the  content  that  an  operation  of  conjunction  may  be 
efiected,  by  which  outUnes  may  be  constructed,  and  thereby 
figures  in  space  perceived. 

The  organ  of  Smell  is  also  in  many  of  its  facts  very  simi- 
lar. The  aroma  may  come  into  the  sensibility  in  larger 
amount,  and  thus  with  more  intense  sensation  when  the 
organ  is  in  a  given  position,  and  thereby  direction  a  id  dis- 
tance may  be  vaguely  estimated  as  the  point  from  whence 
the  effluvia  have  come.  But  nothing  is  here  capacitated  for 
giving  the  perception  of  shapes  to  odors.  The  organ  may 
be  more  or  less  perfected  in  its  conformation,  and  thereby  a 
more  intense  sensation  may  be  given,  as  in  the  dog  or  the 
vulture,  and  in  this  way  distance  and  direction  be  more 
accurately  apprehended,  but  no  perfection  of  organization 
can  in  this  way  give  the  capacity  of  perceiving  figure  in 
space  by  the  smell,  inasmuch  as  there  is  no  adaptation  to 
the  conditions  demanded  for  the  necessary  intellectual  con- 
struction. 

The  facts  in  the  sense  of  Taste  should  also  be  put  in  the 


174  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    LAW. 

induction.  From  this  organization  there  is  not  capacity  for 
perceiving  even  position  in  space.  The  sensation  is  condi- 
tioned to  the  savory  object  coming  in  contact  with  the  organ 
and  being  chemically  dissolved  upon  it,  and  thus  the  sense 
of  touch  is  to  be  wholly  excluded.  The  quality  discrimina- 
ted may  have  form  as  amount,  as  prolonged,  but  not  as 
extended.  Not  even  position,  and  much  less  figure  in  space, 
can  be  perceived  in  any  sapidity.  There  is  nothing  of  the 
homogeneous  diverse,  as  extensive,  given  in  the  content,  and 
consequently  nothing  which  may  be  conjoined  into  shape. 

Thus,  then,  with  all  our  organs  of  sense ;  the  facts  are 
held  in  colligation  by  our  ideal  liypothesis,  and  in  all  cases 
evince  this  actual  law,  that  the  capacity  to  perceive  form  as 
extension  in  space  is  found  in  the  actual  operation  of  con- 
junction, and  where  that  can  not  be  effected,  there  it  is 
impracticable  that  any  figure  should  be  perceived. 

We  will  further  bring  within  our  induction  under  this 
division,  the  facts  connected  with  the  capacity  of  the  sense 
for  perceiving  phenomena  in  the  forms  of  prolonged  Time. 
The  operation  of  conjunction  is,  in  the  protensive,  in  one 
measure  only,  and  constructs  period  in  the  flowing  series  of 
successions.  All  sensation  in  any  organ  of  sensibility  is,  as 
discriminated  quality,  a  conscious  affecting  of  my  inner  state, 
and  thereby  giving  the  homogeneous  diversity  as  protensive 
in  time.  As  the  affection  goes  on  in  the  continuance  of  the 
quality,  or  the  perpetual  alteration  of  qualities,  the  diverse 
instants  admit  of  a  conjoining  operation  which  constructs 
them  into  definite  periods,  and  the  qualities  are  thus  given 
as  phenomena  in  their  forms  of  time.  One  kind,  or  one 
variety  of  quality,  is  as  much  as  another  readily  subjected 
to  this  operation  of  conjunction  which  constructs  its  form  in 


COLLIGATION    OF    FACTS.  175 

time.  No  one  organ  has  a  different  capacity  in  respect  to 
forms  in  time  from  another. 

Tlius,  take  any  color  as  quality  in  "vision.  Its  topical 
arrangement  on  the  retina,  as  the  field  of  sensation,  gives 
peculiar  capacity  for  constructing  its  figure  in  space,  espe- 
cially in  the  capability  for  revolving  the  sensation  in  the 
whole  field  over  the  sensible  spot,  as  before  considered. 
But  such  facility  for  the  operation  of  conjunction  in  exten- 
sion avails  nothing  for  conjunction  in  prolongation.  The 
bare  sensation  in  any  organ  may  give  diverse  instants  in  the 
affecting  of  the  inner  state  as  completely  as  when  the  sensa- 
tion is  spread  out  topically  upon  an  expanded  field  of  the 
sensibility.  I  may  thus  as  readily  construct  the  period  of  a 
sound,  an  odor,  or  a  taste,  as  a  color  or  all  the  colors  defi- 
nitely arranged  in  a  landscape.  All  sensation  in  any  organ 
induces  modified  affections  of  the  internal  state,  and  thereby 
as  inner  sense  come  within  time,  and  may  thus  fill  the  forms 
of  time  through  a  definite  construction  of  them,  and  be  per- 
ceived as  phenomena  having  their  exact  periods ;  and  no 
sensation,  in  this  capacity,  for  conjunction  in  the  form  of 
time,  has  any  advantage  above  another,  nor  in  point  of  fact 
do  we  perceive  the  period  of  the  quality  in  one  organ,  more 
readily  nor  more  perfectly  than  in  another. 

We  induce  also  the  facts  connected  with  the  perception 
of  Intensity  in  sensation.  And  here,  again,  manifestly  the 
facts  are  that  T  can  perceive  degrees  in  the  amount  of  the 
quality,  as  well  when  given  in  one  organ  of  the  sense  as  in 
another.  The  organ  of  vision  or  of  touch  has  capacity  for 
an  intellectual  constructing  of  figure  in  space,  when  all 
other  organs  are  destitute  of  all  that  can  capacita^,e  for  such 
an  operation  ;  but  this  does  not  give  capacity  for  an  inteUec- 


176  THY    SENSE    IN    ITS    LAW, 

tual  construction  of  the  degree  in  intensity,  or  amount,  for 
the  sensation  in  the  eye  or  the  touch  any  more  readily  or 
completely  than  for  the  sensation  in  the  smell  or  the  taste. 
I  can  as  well  perceive  how  much  sweet  or  bitter  there  is  in 
intensity,  as  I  can  how  much  redness,  or  hardness  there  is. 
And  this  fact  manifestly  comes  within  our  hypothesis,  inas- 
much as  all  construction  of  intensity,  or  amount,  must  be 
of  one  measure  in  all  quality,  simply  as  a  conjunction  of 
degrees  from  void  sensation  up  to  the  given  intensity,  and 
this  as  truly  for  quality  in  taste  as  for  quality  in  vision. 
One  organ  has  no  prerogative  over  another,  but  each  equally 
gives  its  content  over  to  the  attending  agency,  that  the 
hmits  of  its  amount  may  be  constructed  for,  and  thus  be 
brought  within,  the  light  of  consciousness. 

Here,  then,  we  have  a  very  broad  field  of  most  interest- 
ing facts,  all  held  in  complete  colligation  by  our  ideal 
hypothesis.  Tn  all  operations  of  conjunction  the  form  is 
given  in  perception  precisely  proportioned  to  the  capacity 
of  the  organ  for  giving  the  diverse  sensation  to  the  intellect 
that  it  may  be  so  conjoined  in  unity.  The  organs  of  vision 
and  touch  give  figure  in  space,  and  they  alone,  inasmuch  as 
no  other  organ  gives  the  diverse  in  extension  as  content  in 
the  sensation.  But  all  organs  alike  give  phenomena  in  the 
forms  of  time  and  amount,  because  they  all  alike  have  the 
diverse  instants  of  duration,  and  diverse  degrees  of  inten- 
sity, in  their  own  sensation  as  content,  and  which,  in  each, 
the  intellect  may  alike  construct  within  their  respective 
limits.  The  ideal  hypothesis  and  the  actual  law  in  all  these 
facts  are  manifestly  correlatives.  The  original  conforma- 
tion of  our  whole  organization  of  the  sense  must  have  had 
is  regulation  in  such  mi  idea  as  its  archetype.     And  in  this 


COLIiGATION     OF    FACTS.  177 

we  may  see  the  beauty  and  the  truth  of  Plato's  representar 
tions,  so  Httle  understood,  so  often  by  an  empirical  perver 
sion  misunderstood  and  then  derided  as  a  visionary  fancy, 
viz.,  that  the  idea  in  the  absolute  reason — the  Divine  Idea 
— has  been  breathed  into  shapeless  matter,  and  thus  that 
which  had  otherwise  been  wholly  amorphous  and  formless 
has  put  on  order  and  beauty ;  and  this  idea,  as  if  it  were 
an  infused  soul,  has  given  vitality  and  unity.  With  all  the 
wonderful  elements  in  the  organs  of  the  sense,  how  mani- 
festly as  inert  and  useless  to  all  the  ends  of  perception  as 
the  dust  into  which  they  ultimately  crumble  must  they  have 
been,  had  not  their  Al'iughty  Maker  put  this  original  idea 
into  them,  as  their  upholding  and  z^iforraing  law  of  combi- 
nation and  functional  operation. 

There  is  still  another  division,  including  many  interesting 
facts,  which  it  is  important  should  be  brought  within  the 
induction  which  we  are  now  making,  and  which  may  be 
given  as — 

3.  Deceptive  appearances. — There  are  many  facts  con- 
nected with  deceptive  appearances  in  the  sense,  and  delu- 
sive phenomena  as  perceived,  which  are  held  in  colligation 
by  this  same  ideal  hypothesis,  and  which  must  therefore 
have  their  actual  law  as  its  correlative,  and  which  we  will 
now  proceed  to  bring  within  our  induction.  In  this  division 
the  facts  are  rather  connected  with  the  operation  of  conjoin- 
ing into  form,  than  distinguishing  the  content,  and  yet  so 
far  as  they  have  any  connection  with  the  quality  perceived, 
they  will  confirm  the  conditions  of  the  operation  of  distinc- 
tion for  all  perception  of  distinct  qualities.  There  is,  in 
these  facts,  an  operation  of  conjunction  effected,  and  thus 
form  appears;    but  because   the' operation  has  been  othe*^ 

a* 


178  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    LAW. 

than  the  conditions  of  the  content  demanded,  the  form  de- 
ceptively appears,  and  thus  the  perception  is  partially  or 
wholly  an  illusion.  The  facts  are  not  of  obscure,  but  of 
false  perceptions.  A  distorted  medium,  or  a  partial  sensa- 
tion, may  condition  the  construction  of  the  form  that  it  shall 
be  quite  a  false  appearance.  The  ring  of  Saturn  may  ap- 
pear as  two  handles  upon  the  opposite  sides  of  the  planet, 
from  the  conditions  in  which  the  content  is  given  in  the  sen- 
sibility. The  agency  in  attention  may  thus  be  led  astray  by 
some  imperfection  in  the  condition  of  the  sensation. 

Thus,  when  in  vision  the  content  is  received  through  a 
dense  fog,  or  perhaps  in  the  twilight,  there  may  often  be, 
not  an  indefinite  appearance  merely,  but  quite  a  deceptive 
and  false  perception.  The  content  has  not  been  spread  upon 
the  field  of  the  sensibility  w^ith  any  sharpness  of  outline, 
and  can  not,  even  when  carefully  revolved  upon  the  sensible 
spot,  give  any  exact  conditions  for  the  constructing  agency, 
and  the  operation  of  conjunction  is  thus  left  very  much  to 
some  scheme  of  the  imagination.  The  habits,  temperament, 
sympathies,  and  emotions  of  the  person  may  thus  very  much 
modify  the  shapes  which  the  matter  in  sensation  shall  as- 
sume in  their  appearance,  and  may  be  of  beautiful,  or  mon- 
strous, or  grotesque  and  ludicrous  illusions.  The  old  story 
of  the  gay  young  lady  and  the  superstitious  curate,  viewing 
the  moon  in  company  through  a  telescope,  is  quite  in  point. 
"  Those  two  shadows,"  says  the  lady,  "  which  stand  side  by 
side  together  are  surely  two  happy  lovers  in  affectionate 
conversation."  "  Ah  !  I  see,"  says  the  curate,  "  two  lovers ! 
not  at  all;  th^.y  are  the  two  steeples  of  a  grand  Cathedral." 
Personal  experience  and  frequent  observation  may  gather 
an   indefinite   number   of  effects   of  the  same  description, 


COLLIGATION    OF    FACTS.  179 

where  1/ie  sensation  has  been  constructed  very  deceptively 
through  the  influence  of  the  imagination  in  its  hopes  or  its 
fears. 

So  with  the  facts  connected  with  tricks  of  legerdemain, 
or  sleight-of-hand,  which  are  often  of  so  marvelous  a  de- 
scription. The  arrangement  of  surrounding  objects,  the 
lights  and  shades,  manifestations  and  concealments,  together 
with  the  attitudes  and  motions  of  the  conjurer  are  so  art- 
fully contrived  and  skillfully  managed  that  the  attending 
agency  of  the  spectator  is  induced  to  move  in  a  certain 
designed  direction,  and  thereby  to  construct  the  intended 
forms,  and  which  thus  appear  in  the  consciousness  as  verita- 
ble phenomena.  From  the  sensation  as  partially  given,  the 
productive  imagination  is  induced  to  construct  such  forms 
as  may  seem  to  fill  up  the  chasms  in  the  content,  and  all  this 
so  readily  and  unsuspectingly  that  the  completed  product  in 
appearance  is  taken  to  be  entire  reality,  and  the  cunning 
delusion  becomes  the  supposed  perception  of  the  most  sur- 
prising occurrences,  and  the  deceptive  wonders  are  related 
abroad  as  the  facts  of  eye-witnesses.  When,  through  feints 
and  artful  management,  the  intellectual  agency  is  induced  to 
construct  such  products  as  the  operator  intended,  while  the 
actual  content  in  the  sense  as  given  is  not  discriminated  from 
that  which  is  merely  supposed,  the  delusion  will  be  com- 
plete, and  the  credulity  partake  of  the  sincere  conviction 
which  belongs  to  a  genuine  perception.  The  distinguishing 
operation  has  been  incomplete,  and  the  constructing  operas 
tion  though  complete,  yet  deceptive,  and  thereby  the  most 
marvelous  prodigies,  ludicrous  absurdities,  and  startling  im- 
possibilities except  as  miraculous,  become  the  strange  per- 
leptions  of  our  own  eyes.     The  constructing  agency  of  the 


180  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    LAW. 

spectator  has  be^n  the  real  conjurer,  but  as  that  has  been 
artfully  deluded  in  its  work,  the  deception  which  it  has  been 
induced  to  practice  upon  itself  is  wholly  overlooked,  and  the 
cheat  is  not  detected. 

The  vans  of  a  wind-mill  in  motion,  when  the  axle  lies  in 
such  a  direction  to  the  eye  that  it  is  difficult  to  determine 
from  the  sensation  merely  which  end  of  the  shaft  it  is  that 
is  nearest  to  our  position,  may  easily  be  made  to  turn  in 
apparently  opposite  directions  at  pleasure.  The  vans  may 
be  arbitrarily  constructed  as  now  on  this  end  of  the  shaft 
and  again  on  the  other  end,  and  the  vane  is  of  course  con- 
structed as  at  the  opposite  end  of  the  shaft  to  that  on  which 
the  vans  are  fixed,  and  thus  the  shaft  appears  to  lie  now  in 
one  direction,  and  again  in  a  reversed  direction.  In  every 
such  change  of  construction,  the  movement  of  the  vans 
must  accord,  and  consequently  if  the  attending  act  give 
them  now  this  and  now  that  position,  their  motion  must 
appear  in  opposite  directions  alternately.  The  apparent 
motion  is  wholly  controlled  by  the  arbitrary  construction, 
and  the  facts  are  thus  in  colligation  by  our  hypothesis. 

So,  again,  with  the  waves  running  over  the  surface  of 
the  water  according  to  the  course  of  the  wind,  the  con- 
structing operation  in  attention  passes  along  with  them,  and 
it  is  quite  difficult  to  escape  from  the  conviction  that  the 
whole  mass  of  water  must  be  flowing  in  that  direction. 
The  wind  may  be  blowing  strongly  up  the  current  of  a 
broad  river,  and  the  undulations  transmit  their  forms 
rapidly  upward,  while  the  matter  is  passing  downward ;  the 
attention  constructs  these  forms  and  gives  them  in  appear- 
ance according  to  their  succession,  while  the  observation 
does  not  distinguish  the  matter  which  successively  takes  on 


COLLIGATION     OF     FACTS.  181 

these  forms,  but  leaves  it  to  appear  as  the  same  matter  con, 
stantly  accompanying  the  same  form,  and  thereby  the  entire 
river  is  deceptively  perceived  to  be  flowing  backwards  in 
its  channel.  But  we  look  off  upon  some  level  meadow  with 
its  tall  grass  waving  on  the  plain,  or  on  the  wide  field  of 
ripening  grain — 

"  That  stoops  its  head  when  whirlwinds  rave, 
And  springs  again  in  eddying  wave, 
As  each  wild  gust  sweeps  by ;" 

and  the  same  form  flows  onward,  and  yet  there  our  percep- 
tion is  not  deluded.  We  are  forced  to  distinguish  the  mat- 
ter as  perpetually  changing  while  the  form  moves  along, 
from  the  present  conviction  that  each  oscillating  top  has  its 
stalk  permanently  rooted  in  the  earth,  and  this  at  once  dissi- 
pates the  illusion  that  both  matter  and  form  are  moving  on 
together.  The  observation  in  its  discrimination  gives  the 
matter  as  merely  swinging  to  and  fro  in  its  place,  as  the 
"eddying  wave"  careers  over  the  landscape,  while  the 
attending  operation  follows  the  forms  it  constructs;  and 
thus  the  forms  flow,  while  the  matter  only  swings  back  and 
forth  in  our  apprehension.  The  practiced  mariner,  after 
long  acquaintance  with  the  mountain  wave,  dissipates  aU 
delusion  in  the  same  manner.  He  has  learned  to  distinguish 
the  matter  as  not  the  same  in  the  same  passing  wave,  and 
thus  to  his  perception  the  waves  may  run  in  any  direction, 
while  he  still  apprehends  the  steadily  setting  course  of  the 
tides  and  currents. 

Once  more,  only,  under  this  division,  we  have  the  facts 
of  deceptive  appearances  as  they  are  given  in  cases  of  double- 
vision.     The  intellectual  agency  is  here  playing  the  same 


182  TtlH    SENSE    IN    ITS    LAW. 

unnoticed  delusion  upon  the  appearance  in  consciousness  as 
above.  There  is  a  content  in  both  organs  of  vision,  and 
from  some  derangement  in  the  ordinary  harmony  of  the 
sensations  in  both,  the  attending  agency  constructs  each  in 
its  own  definite  form,  and  thus  two  objects  Hke  to  each 
other  appear  in  the  consciousness.  Ordinarily,  the  muscles 
of  the  eyes  give  to  each  such  a  direction  that  the  content  is 
topically  in  each  after  the  same  arrangement  in  reference  to 
the  sensible  spot,  and  both  the  distinguishing  and  the  con- 
joining agency  operate  according  to  an  identity  in  the  con- 
tent of  both  the  organs,  and  thus,  make  but  one  phenom- 
enon in  consciousness ;  but  when  any  derangement  from 
concussion,  a  brain-fever,  or  other  cause  arises,  or  when  the 
organs  are  imperfectly  subjected  to  the  muscular  action,  or 
the  sensation  distorted  as  in  strabismus,  or  again  when  the 
object  is  placed  between  the  eyes  and  too  near  to  permit 
the  axis  of  each  to  concentrate  upon  it,  the  sensation  may 
be  a  condition  for  a  double  construction,  and  thus  all  the 
phenomena  of  double-vision  occur.  The  single  eye  could 
not  probably  give  the  conditions  for  double-vision ;  at  least 
in  order  that  it  might  give  such  conditions,  it  would  be 
necessary  that  its  content  so  affect  the  sensibility  as  to 
induce  a  double  attending  operation. 

A  double  perception  is  effected  in  the  same  way  through 
other  organs.  The  touch  of  different  fingers  of  the  same 
hand,  or  on  the  opposite  hands  may  give  a  deranged  sensa- 
tion inducing  a  double  operation,  both  of  distinction  and 
conjunction,  and  of  course  resulting  in  a  double  perception. 
One  may  be  benumbed  by  cold,  or  a  bruise,  or  there  may 
b(3  the  crossing  of  two  fingers  with  the  object  placed 
between  them,  and  as  the  content  m   each  may  thus  be 


COLLIGATION     OF     FACTS.  183 

separately  constructed,  two  objects  will  seem  to  be  per- 
ceived. Double  sounds  may  be  given  from  the  different 
state  of  the  two  organs  presenting  their  sensations  so  modi- 
fied as  to  induce  the  separate  construction  of  both ;  but 
inasmuch  as  the  ear  is  without  capacity  for  giving  figure  in 
space,  the  double  operation  could  not  give  double  object  in 
shape.  The  doubling  of  the  object  as  in  reflection  from  a 
mirror  in  sight,  or  of  an  echo  in  sound,  is  not  properly  a 
double  perception,  inasmuch  as  the  content  given  direct  and 
that  in  reflection  are  really  different,  and  their  discrimina- 
tion must  be  effected  as  in  any  difference  of  content. 
Where  the  organ  is  not  double  the  perception  is  not  two- 
fold, though  in  single  organs  the  sensations  may  vary  from 
the  same  occasions  at  different  times,  from  some  modifica- 
tions in  the  state  of  the  sensibility.  Thus  the  same  odors, 
or  the  same  food,  or  wine,  may  differ  widely  in  the  percep- 
tion in  states  of  sickness  from  those  of  health. 

Under  all  the  foregoing  divisions,  we  have  now  taken 
many  facts,  and  many  more  might  be  readily  brought 
within  our  induction,  and  it  is  here  quite  evident  that  they 
are  all  readily  bound  up  in  our  ideal  hypothesis  with  which 
we  commenced,  and  are  thus  brought  into  complete  colliga- 
tion. All  these  facts  have  embodied  within  them  one  actual 
law  of  their  being,  and  which  law  Ave  now  know  to  be  in  per- 
fect correlation  with  our  assumed  hypothesis  as  idea;  and  thus 
far  we  have  a  science  of  these  facts,  because  we  can  expound 
them  in  their  own  law  of  being  and  arrangement.  And 
now,  it  Avould  be  safe,  as  an  inductive  science,  t )  say  here 
that  our  induction  of  facts  has  been  sufficiently  broad  to 
warrant  the  deduction,  that  the  law  in  these  facts  in  the 
process  of  perception  is  the  law  for  perception  itself  univer 


184  THE    SEXSE    IN    ITS    LAW. 

sally,  and  thus  to  conclude  that  all  the  facts  which  experi- 
ence  may  give  us  in  any  perceptions  will  be  found  in  colliga- 
tion with  those  already  attained.  It  is,  however,  competent 
to  very  much  further  corroborate  such  a  conclusion,  by 
what  we  have  termed  the  Consilience  of  Facts.,  and  to 
which  we  will  devote  the  next  section,  previoufJy  to  any 
geneial  deductions  from  the  facts  attained  within  the  com- 
prehension of  our  hypothetical  idea. 


SECTIONIII. 

THE     CONSILIENCE     OF     FACTS. 

When  facts,  which  have  apparently  a  very  remote  bear- 
ing from  each  other,  and  which  at  first  seem  widely  discon- 
nected, and  would  induce  the  expectation  that  if  they  are 
ever  made  explicable  it  must  be  from  reasons  and  principles 
very  diverse  from  each  other,  are  yet  found  to  leap  together, 
as  it  were,  in  colligation  with  facts  more  manifestly  allied, 
and  which  may  have  already  been  brought  together  in  an 
induction,  we  have  a  case  of  what  we  here  term  the  Consili- 
ence of  Facts.  The  confidence  in  the  general  law  thus 
deduced  is  augmented  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  the 
facts  and  the  distance  whence  they  thus  jump  together 
within  the  same  hypothesis. 

An  illustration  of  the  force  of  such  facts  to  corroborate 
the  general  law  may  be  given  in  the  example  of  the  preces- 
sion of  the  equinoxes  as  leaping  within  the  law  of  universal 
gravitation.     The  longitude  of  the   fixed   stars,   measured 


THE    CONSILIENCE    OF    FACTS,  186 

from  the  point  where  the  sun's  annual  path  cuts  the  equa- 
tor, will  from  time  to  time  change,  if  that  point  changes. 
Now  the  fact  of  such  a  change  had  been  very  early  noticed 
by  Hyparchus  and  observed  by  subsequent  astronomers  for 
near  two  thousand  years.  But  for  such  a  fact,  no  explana- 
tion was  found.  The  phenomenon  appeared,  but  stood  quite 
anomalous  among  the  other  facts  of  astronomy.  But  when 
Newton  had  made  the  grand  discovery  of  the  law  of  gravi- 
tion,  and  had  apphed  it  to  the  explanation  of  many  facts  of 
planetary  motion  readily  embraced  within  it,  this  remote 
and  apparently  wholly  disconnected  fact  of  the  equinoctial 
precession  was  found  very  unexpectedly  to  leap  within  the 
same  generalization  with  the  apparently  much  nearer  allied 
phenomena  in  the  heavens.  The  equatorial  diameter  of  the 
earth  is  greater  than  its  polar  diameter  from  the  aggrega- 
tion of  matter  accumulated  about  the  equatorial  region 
through  its  diurnal  revolution,  and  of  course  the  action  of 
gravity  which  is  as  the  quantity  of  matter  must  be  thus 
modified.  The  disturbing  force  hereby  induced  is,  when 
accurately  calculated,  precisely  that  Avhich  accounts  for  this 
change  of  point  in  the  sun's  annual  path,  and  thereby  solves 
the  whole  anomaly.  The  leaping  of  so  remote  and  remark- 
able a  fact  within  the  same  general  law  which  had  become 
readily  applied  to  more  obvious  phenomena  was  an  unan- 
swerable confirmation  of  the  general  law,  since  no  mere 
casual  coincidences  could  have  resulted  in  such  extended 
systematic  connection.  It  was  a  most  beautiful  manifesta- 
tion of  the  comprehensiveness  of  the  law  and  the  harmony 
of  its  operation. 

And   here  facts  may  be  found  which  leap  within  our 
'ideal  hypothesis  for  perception,  quite  as  remote  from  the 


186  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    LAW. 

others  embraced  as  in  the  case  of  the  precession  of  the 
equinoxes  within  the  general  law  of  gravital^on,  and  though 
not  as  remarkable  in  themselves,  yet  tending  as  effectually 
to  corroborate  the  general  law,  within  which  they  unex- 
pectedly come  in  consilience.  Some  of  these  facts  we  now 
proceed  to  include  in  our  induction. 

The  arts  of  drawing  and  painting  have  their  facts  which 
may  readily  be  seen  to  come  within  this  consiUence  of  induc- 
tions.    The  two  may  be  taken  as  one,  in  those  respects  in 
which  both  are  designed  to  represent  form  as  extension  in 
space.     The  ideal  creations  in  the  mind  of  the  artist,  sub- 
jectively,  are  the  product  and  proof  of  his  genius ;    but 
when  he  would  give  to  these  ideals  an  objective  representa- 
tion, he  is  conditioned  to  just  such  a  process  of  delineation 
and  coloring  as  he  would  be  in  representing  some  original 
actually  existhig  in  nature.     His  idea,  as  a  landscape,  a  face, 
or  a  group  of  objects  material,  vegetable,  and  animal,  must 
be  drawn  and  painted  in  the  same  method  of  operation  as  if 
he  were  actually  taking  some  copy  from  nature.     Separate 
from  the  creative  invention  of  his  genius,  he  is  necessarily  a 
copyist  according  to  the  conditions  imposed  by  nature  itself: 
and  the  completed  product  must  be  tested  by  its  general 
conformity  with  these  conditions  of  nature.     If  that  which 
is  put  upon  the  canvas  in  its  outline  and  coloring  gives  such 
an  appearance  as  that  ideal  would  if  made  to  exist  in  nature, 
the  operation  is  complete  and  the  painter  is  perfect  in  his 
art.     In  the  execution  of  this  part  of  his  work  he  must 
derive  instruction  from  observation  and  practical  experience. 
Where  the  representation  is  to  be  made  without  the  col- 
oiing  in  its  lights  and  shades  in  painting,  the  result  is  ef- 
fected simply  by  drawing  lines  in  a  skillful  manner  to  give 


THE    CONSILIENCE     OF    FACTS.  187 

the  figures  and  proportions  of  nature  ;  and  to  see  how  exact 
the  copy  may  thus  be  made,  even  in  minute  and  very  peculiar 
expressions,  we  need  merely  to  glance  at  some  finished  pro- 
duction in  sketching  or  engraving  in  outline.  How  is  this 
surprising  resemblance  effected  ?  Certainly  by  copying  na- 
ture, in  some  way,  and  yet  not  at  all  in  making  the  product 
itself  like  nature,  but  solely  by  inducing  the  spectator  him- 
self to  construct  such  a  product.  In  the  picture  there  has 
been  used  nothing  but  certain  lines  with  their  curves  and 
angles,  while  in  nature,  animate  or  inanimate,  no  lines  are 
presented  to  the  eye  and  only  masses  of  color  and  combina- 
tions of  light  and  shade.  A  definite  portion  of  space  is  thus 
filled,  and,  as  content  in  the  sensibility,  is  the  condition  for 
perceiving  the  object.  Nature  uses  no  pencil  or  engraver's 
tool  to  make  outlines.  She  puts  the  mass  of  colors  into 
sjjace,  and  fills  a  definite  portion,  and  leaves  that  portion 
surrounded  on  all  sides  by  an  outer  space  beyond  it.  When 
this  is  received  as  the  content  in  sensation,  the  attending 
agency  moves  over  it,  and  thereby  conjoins  it  in  the  unity 
of  figure  which  is  perceived  as  definite  object. 

And  now  the  same  intellectual  operation  in  the  spectator 
must  be  secured  by  the  work  of  the  limner.  The  attending 
process  must  be  conditioned  to  the  same  track  in  the  ]pic- 
ture  as  in  nature,  and  in  this  way  the  appearance  is  a  repre- 
sentation of  nature.  But  this  is  effected  not  as  nature  ac- 
complishes it,  by  giving  the  whole  mass  of  coloring  termin- 
ating in  exterior  space  on  all  sides,  but  simply  by  tracing 
that  path  in  which  the  artist  would  have  the  spectator's  at- 
tention move,  by  a  simple  line  precisely  where  in  nature  the 
mass  and  the  surrounding  space  meet  together  and  limit 
each  other.     In  this  manner  precisely  the  same  construct- 


188  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    LAW. 

ing  operation,  and  thus  precisely  the  same  form  is  se- 
cured both  in  nature  and  art,  and  as  the  distinction  of  qual- 
ity is  not  here  regarded,  the  sameness  in  form  gives  the 
Ukeness  in  representation.  Nature's  law  is  followed,  rather 
than  that  nature's  object  is  copied.  The  intellect  in  atten- 
tion is  induced  by  art  to  move  just  where  the  content  from 
nature  would  condition  the  movement.  Hence  the  likeness 
often  so  very  striking,  from  even  a  very  few  apt  lines  and 
nice  touches.  Here,  certainly,  are  many  interesting  yet 
quite  remote  facts  leaping  directly  within  the  induction 
which  we  had  before  bound  in  colligation  by  our  ideal  hy- 
pothesis. 

And  still  further,  when  the  painter  pursues  his  work  and 
would  imitate  nature  not  merely  in  outline,  but  completely 
in  the  whole  mass  of  color,  and  thereby  secure  the  same 
sensation  as  nature's  own  objects  would,  the  facts  in  this 
case  have  also  a  like  remarkable  consiUence  within  the  induc- 
tion before  attained. 

The  condition  for  constructing  the  figure  of  the  object 
from  nature  is,  that  the  masses  of  color  shall  fill  their  own 
places  topically  in  the  field  of  the  sensibility.  The  Hmita- 
tions  of  the  object  in  the  surrounding  space  secure  that  the 
whole  content  in  sensation  shall  observe  this  condition. 
But,  as  thus  received,  the  outline  is  that  of  a  plane  superfi- 
cies merely.  Whether  convex  or  concave,  the  outline  is  as 
of  a  plane  surface  only.  Thus  a  sphere  and  a  circle  of 
equal  diameters  may  either  of  them  fill  the  same  space ;  a 
Column  will  have  the  same  boundaries  in  space  as  a  board  of 
equal  length  and  breadth  ;  and  each  of  these  will  also  have 
the  same  outline  as  a  concave  body  of  equal  longitudinal 
Wid  lateral  dimensions.     Thus,  also,  of  all  angular  forms  ,♦ 


THE    CONSILIENCE    OF    FACTS.  189 

A  square  when  turned  obliquely  fills  in  spac^e  the  outlines  of 
a  parallelogram ;  a  cube  may  have  its  visible  sides  in  such  a 
position  as  to  fill,  not  equal  squares,  but  oblong  spaces ;  a 
circle  may  have  the  outline  of  an  ellipse  by  being  turned 
obliquely  in  its  plane,  and  when  its  plane  is  in  the  axis  of 
vision  it  may  even  become  a  straight  line  in  the  appearance ; 
and  a  cone  fills  the  space  of  a  triangle.  The  limits  of  all 
these  in  space  are,  respectively,  like  each  other. 

But  in  our  experience  a  difference  is  perceived  in  all 
these  forms.  We  distinguish  quite  readily  plane  from 
spherical  bodies,  squares  from  parallelograms,  and  cubes 
from  solids  of  unequal  sides.  So,  also,  a  small  object  near 
to  the  eye  may  fill  the  same  place  in  the  sensibility  as  a 
much  larger  and  proportionally  more  distant  body  ;  and  yst 
in  our  experience  we  shall  readily  distinguish  the  near  and 
the  smaller  from  the  distant  and  the  larger.  The  conditions 
for  such  an  experience  is  what  we  need  to  find  as  explana- 
tory of  the  results.  The  content  in  the  sensibilility  must  be 
so  given  that  the  pecuharity  of  forms  and  distance  may  be 
constructed.  And  Avhen  a  careful  examination  is  made  of 
the  facts,  those  conditions  are  readily  found.  When  the 
outline,  as  given  topically  in  the  sensibility,  is  the  same  for 
different  figures  and  distances,  there  are  yet  other  condi- 
tions by  which  the  right  construction  is  induced.  The 
sphere  and  the  circle  may  occupy  the  same  place  topically 
on  the  retina,  and  be  alike  revolved  nicely  over  the  sensible 
spot,  and  if  nothing  but  bare  outline  be  constructed,  no  dif- 
ference of  figure  could  be  perceived.  But  the  sphere  has, 
as  a  content  in  the  sensibility,  a  diversity  giving  peculiar 
quality,  as  distinguishable  from  the  content  of  the  circle 
The  colors  which  give  light  and  shade  in  the  sphere  are  not 


190  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    L  A  "VV  . 

in  the  circle.  And  thus  is  it  with  planes  and  convex  or  con- 
cave bodies,  a  board  and  a  column,  or  a  triangle  and  a  cone, 
their  contents  differ ;  and  as  these  are  distinguished,  the  at- 
tending agency  gives  a  differently  constructed  form,  and 
thereby  a  perception  of  different  figure.  In  painting,  this 
difference  of  quality  in  light  and  shade  needs  only  to  be  sup- 
plied on  the  canvas,  and  the  attention  gives  the  form  as  in 
the  lights  and  shades  of  nature.  With  distances,  again, 
there  is  not  only  the  difference  of  light  and  shade,  but  also 
of  sharpness  and  prominence  of  outline  in  the  sensibility 
between  the  near  and  the  more  distant,  which  are  to  be  oh- 
served  in  distinction ;  and  as  a  still  more  remarkable  condi- 
tion, the  capacity  of  getting  the  different  optic  angles  for 
the  near  and  the  more  remote  object,  by  the  position  of  the 
two  organs  in  the  different  inclinations  of  their  optic  axes 
toward  the  object ;  or,  when  still  more  distant,  the  different 
inclinations  when  the  he;id  is  in  one  place,  and  when  moved 
to  the  right  or  left  and  the  axes  there  directed  to  the  object. 
Such  optic  angle  as  larger  or  smaller,  gives  the  object  as 
nearer  or  more  remote,  and  this  is  to  be  attended  to  in  the 
conjunction.  By  thus  distinguishing  the  content  in  its  lights 
and  shades,  its  intensity  and  sharpness  of  outline  in  the  sen- 
sation as  different  for  different  distances,  and  constructing 
the  different  optic  angles,  the  less  for  the  more  distant  and 
the  larger  for  the  nearer  object,  distance  is  conditioned  in 
the  perception  as  readily  as  figure  from  light  and  shade 
alone.  The  eye  comes  thus  to  perceive  figures,  magnitudes, 
and  distances,  with  a  most  surprising  exactness.  The  con- 
ditions for  perceiving  different  shapes  when  the  outlines  are 
the  same,  and  different  sizes  and  distances  when  all  are  on 
one  plane  of  the  retina  as  given  in  the  sensation,  are  thus 


THE    CONSILIENCE     OF    FACTS.  191 

made  quite  manifest.  And  that,  through  all  their  complica- 
tion and  remoteness  from  the  other  facts  in  our  induction, 
these  do  yet  leap  together  within  our  hypothesis,  gives 
great  confirmation  to  the  deduction  of  our  universal  laAV. 

That  the  conditions  for  distance,  magnitude,  and  figure, 
have  as  above  been  correctly  given  is  also  manifest  from 
other  ficts,  which  also  come  leaping  within  the  same  induc- 
tion. Thus  for  distances  and  magnitudes  we  have  the  fol- 
lowing facts.  When  the  eye  receives  its  content  in  the  sen- 
sibility through  the  medium  of  a  spy-glass,  the  magnitude 
of  the  object  is  precisely  in  the  ratio  of  the  greater  angle, 
which  it  is  made  to  subtend  through  the  more  or  less  diver- 
gency given  to  the  rays  of  light  by  the  optic  glass  as  a  lens. 
The  distance,  also,  is  in  the  same  ratio  diminished.  But  if, 
now,  we  will  invert  the  spy-glass  and  look  at  the  same 
objects  through  the  opposite  end,  the  subtended  angle  is  as 
much  diminished  as  before  it  was  enlarged,  the  objects  are 
in  the  same  ratio  smaller,  and  also  in  the  same  ratio  at  a 
greater  distance.  It  is  not  the  intensity  of  the  sensation  or 
the  sharpness  of  outline  in  the  content,  except  as  relatively 
in  its  own  portions  at  the  same  time,  for  these  may  be 
exactly  equal  in  the  direct  and  the  inverted  spy-glass,  but 
ihe  constructing  agency  plots  its  distances  and  magnitudes 
from  the  angles  Avhich  the  objects  subtend — the  magnitudes 
directly,  and  the  distances  inversely. 

Relatively  to  figures^  we  have  the  following  facts. 
When  some  medium  for  transmitting  light  gives  the  con- 
tent in  the  sensibility  a  reversed  location  in  the  sensation, 
the  outlines  of  the  content  become,  of  course,  transposed  to 
opposite  sides  throughout  the  whole  field  of  the  sensation. 
Tlie  reversed  representation  of  the  object  must  so  appear. 


192  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    LAW. 

If,  now,  this  object  be  a  plane  surface  of  homogeneous  color 
throughout,  the  object  as  represented  will  appear  as  a  plane, 
and  though  reversed  as  to  its  sides  yet  equable  upon  its  sur- 
face. But  if  the  object  thus  transmitted  have  characters, 
as  letters  or  emblems,  upon  the  surface,  and  these  charac- 
ters are  in  relief,  standing  out  from  the  plane  as  in  a  coin  or 
medal,  the  object  will  not  only  appear  reversed,  but  all  the 
outlines  of  its  characters  also  reversed,  and  the  lights  and 
shades  of  the  reversed  characters  transposed  to  opposite 
sides.  This  induces  a  construction  in  attention  which  di- 
rectly reverses  the  characters  in  relief  to  engraved  indenta- 
tions beneath  the  surface,  and  they  so  appear  in  perception. 
And  if  we  substitute  the  die  by  which  the  coin  was  struck, 
with  its  figures  as  depressions  from  the  surface,  the  revers- 
ing of  the  outlines  of  the  lights  and  shades  gives  the  condi- 
tions for  constructing  convexities  and  not  concavities,  and 
thus  the  characters  are  perceived  to  be  standing  out  in  relief 
upon  the  surface.  The  whole  perception  of  figure  is  as  the 
attending  agency  is  conditioned,  and  thus  leaping  in  all  its 
facts  within  the  same  colUgation  of  our  hypothesis. 

And  once  more,  only,  when  nature  is  exactly  copied  in 
these  particulars  as  above  by  the  painter,  the  content  given 
in  sense  conditions  the  sensation  to  be  constructed  as  in 
nature,  and  thus  the  objects  perceived  in  the  painting 
appear  as  nature.  We  shall  thus  have  this  other  remark- 
able consilience  of  all  the  facts  of  perspective  and  dioramic 
painting  within  our  already  very  broad  induction.  The 
artist  assumes  a  certain  point,  and  arranges  all  his  work  in 
reference  to  it.  The  point  in  the  painting  is  to  be  taken  as 
the  stand-point  for  perceiving  the  objects  in  nature,  and  the 
picture  through  all  its  several  portions  is  made  to  stand  at 


THE    CONSILIENCE     OF    FACTS.  193 

corresponding  directions  and  angles  from  tliat  point  as  in 
nature,  and  to  receive  such  colors,  and  modifications  of  liglit 
and  shade,  and  clearness  or  indistinctness  of  outline,  as 
shall  condition  the  like  construction  from  the  content  given 
to  the  sensibility  by  the  picture  as  would  be  given  by  the 
original  designed  to  be  represented.  The  quality  upon  the 
canvas  is  thus  made  to  appear  standing  out  as  in  space  with 
all  the  fullness  and  hfe  of  reality.  The  rules  of  perspective 
painting  are  thus  taken  from  nature,  not  in  her  real  forms  as 
in  statuary  and  carving,  but  only  in  her  colors  and  angular 
proportions  and  bearings  from  the  stand-point.  The  painter 
learns  to  separate  nature  as  she  is,  from  that  which  is  given 
of  her  as  content  in  sensation,  and  puts  upon  his  canvas  that 
precisely  which  is  the  counterpart  to  the  sensation,  and 
passes  by  all  which  the  intellectual  agency  constructs  in 
nature,  leaving  that  operation  to  be  eifected  in  the  same 
way  as  in  nature  from  the  conditions  in  the  picture.  In 
proportion  to  its  perfection,  the  painting  puts  the  same  con- 
tent in  the  sense  as  nature  would,  and  the  distinguishing 
and  conjoining  operations  of  the  intellect  give  the  same 
qualities  and  forms  to  the  consciousness,  and  thus  the  pic^ 
ture  becomes  the  resemblance  of  nature. 

So,  on  the  plane  surface  of  his  canvas  the  artist  spreads 
out  the  conceptions  of  his  genius  before  us.  The  sensibil- 
ity receives  the  content,  and  we  observe  and  attend.  The 
quality  is  distinguished,  and  the  forms  are  conjoined.  The 
light  and  shades  through  all  the  coloring,  and  the  figures, 
magnitudes  and  distances  over  all  the  extension,  are  thus 
together  constructed  in  consciousness,  and  give  the  percep- 
tions in  all  their  distinctness  and  definiteness,  and,  as  a 
whole,  the  designed  scene  in  all  its  completeness.     Perhaps 

9 


194  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    I.  A.W. 

it  is  the  interior  of  some  magnificent  temple ;  its  massive 
architecture  appears  in  all  its  grandeur,  comprising  long 
ranges  of  columns  and  broad  and  high  arches,  extended 
aisles,  ascending  stair- ways,  and  lofty  galleries,  with  all  their 
beautiful  proportions.  A  throng  of  persons  in  all  their  va- 
riety of  height  and  figure,  of  attitude  and  costume  are  seen 
to  crowd  its  courts  and  porches,  sit  upon  the  benches,  or 
walk  over  the  tesselated  pavements.  With  the  single  ex- 
ception of  motion  the  canvas  gives  all  that  nature  does ; 
or  rather  without  exception,  it  gives  all  that  nature  does  in 
one  instant  of  the  sensation,  and  the  intellectual  agency  in 
its  operation  of  distinction  and  conjunction  puts  within  the 
light  of  consciousness  the  same  appearance  as  would  be 
conditioned  by  nature  itself  The  rules  of  perspective,  and 
of  dioramic  representation  in  art,  are  simply  a  transcript  of 
the  conditions  in  sensation  for  open  vision.  All  the  facts 
jump  together  into  the  same  conclusion  of  our  general  law 
for  perception,  and  both  the  consilience  and  the  colligation 
of  facts  alike  find  their  systematic  arrangement  and  ade- 
quate explanation  in  our  assumed  ideal  hypothesis. 

Perhaps  it  might  now  with  safety  be  asserted,  that  no 
deduction  of  a  general  law  from  any  induction  of  facts, 
could  be  more  convincing,  than  that  of  the  operation  of  dis- 
tinction and  conjunction  for  all  perception.  As  an  inductive 
science,  we  might  here  afiirm  that  we  have  an  idea  correla- 
tive to  an  actual  law  in  the  perceptions  of  the  sense. 

But,  our  a  priori  investigation  capacitates  for  a  much 
higher  ground  of  affirming  this  general  law,  than  any  induc- 
tion of  facts  can  reach,  however  multiplied  they  may  be. 
At  the  most  they  are  yet  partial,  and  can  give  only  proba- 
bilities, not  certainties,  beyond  the  actual  induction  in  the 


.     THE    CONSILIEXCE     OP    FACTS.  195 

experience.  In  onr  a  priori  conclusions  we  demonstrated 
necessity  and  universality  for  our  idea.  We  found  that 
only  in  accordance  with  its  conditions  was  any  perception  of 
phenomena  possible.  When  we  now  find  this  a  priori  idea 
to  have  its  correlative  in  an  actual  law  in  the  facts,  we  are 
fully  warranted  in  affirming  for  this  actual  law  a  universal 
extension  to  all  the  facts  of  perception,  upon  the  high 
ground  of  an  already  demonstrated  necessity  and  universal- 
ity, and  not  merely  as  a  deduction  from  a  wide  induction  of 
particular  facts.  The  a  jyi'iori  demonstration  capacitates  us 
to  say,  this  actual  law  is  so  in  the  facts  induced,  not  only ; 
and  mai/  be  deduced  as  general  law  from  this  induction,  not 
alone ;  but  much  more  than  this,  this  actual  law  in  the  facts 
must  have  been  as  it  is  ;  and  it  must  extend  to  all  the  facts 
which  any  experience  shall  give  in  the  perception  of  phe- 
nomena universally.  We  have  a  transcendental  demonstra- 
tion of  the  universality  of  our  law,  as  actually  found  in  real 
colligation  of  facts. 

Here,  then,  we  complete  our  science  of  Rational  Psy- 
chology in  reference  to  the  Faculty  of  the  Sense.  We  have 
attained  its  a  priori  Idea  both  for  the  pure  and  the  empiri- 
cal intuition,  and  found  it  in  this — that  content  must  be 
given  in  sensation,  and  that  this  must  be  distinguished  in 
its  matter,  and  conjoined  in  its  form,  as  conditional  for  all 
possible  phenomena  in  perception.  This  a  priori  idea  has 
not  only  been  attained  as  pure  thought^  but  we  have  as- 
sumed it  hypothetically,  and  questioned  actual  experience 
largely  under  its  direction,  and  have  gathered  a  wide  inclno- 
tion  of  facts  which  are  manifestly  held  in  colligation  by  it, 
and  from  which  it  would  be  safe  to  make  the  deduction, 
that  this  law  in  the  facts  induced,  as  correlative  wi'b  our 


196  THE    SENSE    IN    ITS    LAW. 

ideal  hypothesis  in  which  the  facts  have  been  bound  up,  is  a 
general  Law  for  all  the  further  facts  of  perception  that  any 
experience  may  give  to  us.  The  correlation  of  idea  and 
general  law  gives  us  in  this  a  valid  Inductive  Science.  But, 
inasmuch  as  all  skepticism  can  not  be  thus  excluded,  be- 
cause the  deduction  of  the  law  is  yet  from  a  partial  induc- 
tion of  facts,  and  also  because  the  law  is  still  only  a  fact, 
w^e  have  gone  much  further  than  a  mere  deduction  from  the 
partial,  and  have  given  to  this  law  actually  attained,  the  a 
priori  demonstration  of  necessity  and  universality,  in  which 
we  havd  Transcendental  Science.  A  valid  science  of  per- 
ception in  the  sense  is  hereby  attained,  and  we  may  from 
it  not  only  perceive  phenomena,  but  philosophically  expound 
the  process  of  perceiving.  We  not  only  may  know  as  per- 
cipients of  the  phenomena  know,  but  much  more  than  this, 
we  know  how  the  perception  is  and  iuust  he  effected.  We 
know  the  appearance  not  only,  but  the  knowing  of  that 
appearance.  In  this  is  science ;  and  from  its  a  priori  dem- 
onstration is  transcendental  science;  and  thus  a  rational^ 
and  not  merely  an  empirical  or  inductive  Psychology. 

Here  our  work  as  appropriate  to  the  first  Part,  would 
be  terminated,  inasmuch  as  the  Psychology  of  the  sense 
is  here  completed ;  but,  as  we  have  before  indicated,  the 
conclusions  of  Rational  Psychology  give  the  data  for  the 
demonstrations  of  Ontology ;  and  as  such  a  process  of 
demonstration  is  of  great  importance,  and  leads  to  most 
interesting  results  in  the  determination  of  the  valid  being 
of  the  objects  as  known  in  that  capacity  which  has  been 
psychologically  investigate^,  so  we  shall,  in  a  separate  form 
as  an  Appendix,  give  here  an  outline  of  the  ontological  de- 
monstration for  the  valid  being  of  the  objects — the  phenom 
ana  inner  and  outer — as  perceived  in  the  faculty  of  the  sense. 


APPENDIX  TO  THE   SENSE, 


AH  ONTOLOGICAJL  DEMONSTRATION  OF  THE  VALID  BEIK« 
OF  THE  PHENOMENAL. 


The  sense  perceives^  and  perception  is  the  apprehension 
of  phenomena  only.  Internal  phenomena  as  mental  exer. 
cises  and  external  phenomena  as  material  qualities  are  appre- 
hended, but  the  subjects  of  the  exercises  and  qualities  can 
not  be  cognized  by  any  functions  of  distinction  and  conjunc- 
tion. 

Moreover,  all  that  the  sense  can  apprehend  is  only  in 
and  for  the  percipient  himself  The  affection  in  sensation  is 
in  my  sensibility,  and  the  operations  of  distinction  and  con- 
junction are  by  my  intellectual  agency,  and  the  phenomena 
distinguished  and  defined  are  for  me  only  and  not  another, 
and  as  apprehended  in  the  light  of  self-consciousness  can 
permit  no  other  percipient  to  commune  with  me  in  the 
same  phenomena.  We  must  have  other  functions  than 
those  of  the  sense  or  any  possible  abstractions  or  combinar 
tions  of  sensible  phenomena,  before  there  can  be  any  one 
field  of  objects  as  common  to  all. 

We  are  not  here,  therefore,  to  inquire  for  the  valid  being 
of  that  which  is  object  to  many,  but  only  for  that  which  is 
made  object  for  each  one,  and  we  can  not  give  the  full 


108  APPENDIX    TO    THE    SENSE. 

demonstration  against  the  Materialist  and  the  Idealist,  until 
we  have  investigated  the  higher  function  of  the  understand- 
ing, and  found  the  Idea  and  Law  for  the  cognition  of  per- 
manent substances  and  perduring  causes.  The  inquiry  is 
solely  to  this  point:  are  the  phenomena  valid  appearances  in 
my  consciousness,  or  only  phantoms  ?  And  the  demonstra- 
tiDu  goes  at  once  to  the  affirmative  answer. 

I.  Valid  being  of  the  inner  phenomena. — Within  the 
primitive  intuition  of  space  and  time  as  solely  a  diversity 
of  points  and  instants,  we  have  found  that  an  intellectual 
agency  enters  and  constructs  pure  figures  and  periods.  The 
whole  work  is  within  an  immediate  beholding  in  the  light 
of  consciousness,  and  all  the  relations  and  proportions  of 
such  constructions  may  be  made  intuitive  demonstrations 
over  the  whole  field  of  pure  mathematics.  The  internal 
state  is  here  affected  solely  through  an  inner  agency,  and 
yet  it  is  really  affected.  The  constructing,  the  intuitively 
beholding,  and  the  mathematically  demonstrating  are  as  real 
phenomena  in  the  inner  sense  as  when  a  content  in  organic 
sensibility  is  discriminated  and  constructed.  Although  the 
forms  are  destitute  of  any  organic  content  in  sensation,  yet 
the  agency  constructing  is  not  a  mere  seeming  but  a  verita- 
ble appearing  in  consciousness.  Wholly  irrespective  of  any 
outer  impression,  the  inner  mental  phenomena  have  a  con- 
scious valid  being. 

It  can  not  invalidate  this  to  urge  that  previous  impres- 
sions had  been  made  upon  the  sensibility,  and  that  the 
affected  organ  may  make  its  own  repetitions  of  forms  and 
be  the  sole  origin  of  the  agency.  Were  there  nothing  but 
the  organism  acted  on  by  outward  impulses,  the  process  of 
constructing  forms  would  be  wholly  mechanical,  and  whei» 


VALID    BEING    OF    THE    PHENOMENAL.        199 

there  was  no  impression  from  Avithout  then  the  organism 
must  be  quiescent.  No  mere  organism  could  acquire  S2)on- 
taneous  self-activity  from  having  once  been  put  in  operation 
by  external  appliances.  And  besides,  the  pure  forms  are 
more  complete  than  any  organic  impressions  can  attain. 
The  mathematical  circle,  or  cone,  or  other  figure,  constructed 
from  the  scheme  of  a  line  revolving  about  one  of  the  ends  or 
a  right-angled  triangle  about  one  of  the  sides  subtending  the 
right-angle,  etc.,  are  perfect.  So  also  with  the  ideal  con- 
structions of  the  sculptor  and  painter.  What  artist  can 
make  diagrams  or  pictures  as  perfect  as  his  ideals  ?  No 
mechanical  copy  ever  equals  the  pure  ideal  form.  While, 
then,  the  pure  but  perfect  forms  only  seem  to  be,  the  agency 
constructing  truly  appears^  and  as  constructing  agency  is  a 
valid  phenomenon  wholly  independent  of  the  organic  sensa- 
tion. 

This  same  demonstration  of  valid  inner  phenomena  is 
cumulative  in  two  other  applications  of  the  constructing 
process.  We  have  taken  the  sensibiUty  as  general  and 
wholly  vacant,  and  by  an  anticipation  of  content  have  found 
the  process  for  distinguishing  and  defining  all  possible  con- 
tent, and  that  process  which  through  a  prolepsis  results  in  a 
determined  act  of  distinction  in  reality,  particularity,  and 
peculiarity,  is  itself  a  veritable  appearing  in  consciousness. 
And  so  also  in  actual  perception,  the  impression  upon  the 
organic  sensibility  may  be  complete  in  the  sensation,  but  in 
this  alone  no  perception  is  effected.  The  content  is  yet  a 
chaos  for  the  consciousness  except  as  intellectually  elabora- 
ted into  distinct  quality  and  definite  quantity,  and  the 
observing  and  attending  agency  is  wholly  mental,  and  the 
exercise  fully  in  tho  consciousness,  and  thus  truly  appears. 


800  APPENDIX    TO    THE     SENSE. 

Both  the  construction  of  possible  and  of  actual  content  give 
the  constructing  exercises  as  valid.  There  is  thus  abundant 
proof  for  the  valid  being  of  the  mental  phenomena. 

II.  Valid  being  of  the  outer  phenomena. — We  may,  oii 
the  other  hand,  demonstrate  the  valid  being  of  the  external 
phenomena,  and  show  that  they  are  not  made  by  the  organ 
itself  nor  by  the  intellectual  agency  within  working  upon 
rhe  organism.  It  is  admitted  that  there  are  many  occur- 
rences of  illusory  phenomena,  fantastic  and  chimerical.  So 
with  dreams,  an^.the  hideous  forms  which  haunt  the  inebri^ 
ate  in  fits  of  delirium  tremens^  and  the  more  questionable 
instances  of  ghost-seeing,  Scottish  second-sight,  and  mes- 
meric clairvoyance.  There  may  be  such  mysterious  scert'j- 
ing^  where  there  is  no  real  content  in  the  sense  as  actually 
appearing.  A  vivid  remembrance  and  spontaneous  combi- 
nation of  old  impressions,  strong  emotions  controlling  the 
constructing  faculty,  or  perhaps  the  reflex  action  of  the  in- 
tellect working,  as  it  were,  upon  the  back  part  of  the  sensi- 
bility, and  projecting  wild  and  unregulated  forms  forward 
for  the  consciousness,  may  account  for  most,  if  not  perhaps 
for  all  such  illusory  visions.  There  are  moreover  the  super- 
natural visions  of  inspired  prophets  and  seers,  where  the 
content  and  construction  were  determined  by  a  miraculous 
agency  for  reveahng  God's  own  purposes  before  the  actual 
events.  All  such  cases  evince  that  there  may  be  seeming 
visions  and  voices  where  no  organic  content  is  present. 
The  skeptic  may  use  such  occurrences  as  data  for  conclud- 
ing against  the  validity  of  any  phenomena.  But  while  we 
may  admit  all  such  instances  of  fantastic  or  miraculous  ap- 
pearance, and  allow  that  they  can  be  only  an  objectifying 
»f  our  o\vti  inner  agency,  or  of  some  miraculously  spiritual 


VALID    BEING     OF    THE    PHENOMENAL.        201 

agency  working  in  us,  yet  can  no  amount  of  such  cases  at 
all  disturb  the  positive  demonstrations  we  may  here  make 
for  valid  objective  phenomena. 

Aside  from  all  such  morbid  or  manifestly  abnormal  per- 
ceptions, we  have  the  vastly  preponderating  amount  of  our 
organic  perceptions  in  a  manner  that  can  be  tested  and  their 
content  clearly  determined.  By  careful  reflection,  we  can 
consciously  detect  the  agency  discriminating  and  conjoining 
a  content  that  we  can  neither  make  nor  unmake.  We  may 
turn  away  or  obstruct  the  organ,  and  then  the  content  can 
be  neither  retained  nor  anew  supplied.  We  can  again  fitly 
direct  the  organ,  and  the  content  can  neither  be  prevented 
nor  expelled.  We  can  consciously  distinguish  and  construct 
this  content,  but  can  do  this  in  no  other  Avay  than  according 
to  its  own  determining  conditions.  In  our  anticipation  of 
a  content,  this  may  be  as  we  please,  and  the  form  may  be 
constructed  as  we  choose,  but  such  arbitrary  constructions 
can  never  be  made  other  than  empty  ideals  in  the  conscious- 
ness ;  while  with  our  organic  content  distinguished  and  de- 
fined, we  can  never  abolish  the  consciousness  that  it  has  a 
real  appearance,  nor  make  it  to  put  on  for  us  a  mere  ideal 
seeming  to  be.  There  are,  therefore,  objective  phenomena, 
valid  and  wholly  independent  of  all  subjective  production. 
We  thus  demonstrate  the  phenomena  of  the  sense  to  be 
both  of  the  internal  and  external  senses,  and  thus  that  there 
are  phenomena  which  may  be  known  as  some,  mental,  and 
some,  material.  What  the  mind  and  the  matter  themselves 
are  we  can  not  here  determine,  for  we  have  the  psychology 
as  yet  only  for  perceiving  phenomena,  not  at  all  for  cogniz- 
ing substances  and  agents. 

That  our  knowledge  begins  in  perception,  and  that  onr 
9* 


202  APPENDIX    TO    THE    SENSE. 

perceptions  attain  valid  phenomena,  may  thus  be  demon- 
strated ;  but  that  any  thing  other  than  phenomenal,  and  that 
within  our  subjective  sphere,  can  be  real,  the  sense  has  no 
data  for  proving.  How  beings  without  our  organs  may 
know,  we  can  not  here  determine.  They  could  not  have  in 
consciousness  heat  and  cold,  sweet  and  bitter,  fragrant  and 
fetid  smells,  and  must  know  them,  if  at  all,  wholly  without 
their  own  experience ;  as  Omniscience  must  know  what  re- 
morse to  us  is  without  His  own  experience  of  it. 

This  phenomenal  world  of  inner  exercises  and  outer 
qualities,  though  single,  isolated,  and  fleeting  in  all  its  per- 
ceived objects,  and  wholly  in  a  perpetual  flow,  is  yet  a  world 
of  reality,  and  not  mere  dreams  nor  ideal  semblances.  The 
actual  content  in  sensation  distinguishes  all  phenomena  in 
perception  from  spectral  illusions,  mental  hallucinations,  or 
credulous  clairvoyance.  It  is  knowledge  valuable  for  its 
own  sake,  and  worth  moi'e  for  the  use  hereafter  to  be  made 
of  it.  Its  full  explanation  is  science  begun,  a  first  and  nec- 
essary stej)  toward  science  completed.  Other  and  higher 
objects  remain  to  be  attained,  but  the  higher  are  beyond  at- 
tainment except  as  we  avail  ourselves  of  these  here  given. 
In  this  philosophy  of  the  Sense,  the  door  opens  to  more 
spacious  and  more  splendid  apartments,  but  we  may  by  no 
means  enter  except  through  this  fore-coiu  t  of  the  Temple 
of  Science. 


PART    II. 
the:   understanding. 


I. 


THE  NECESSITY  FOR  A  HiaHER  INTELLECTUAL  AGENCY 
THAN  ANY  IN  THE  SENSE. 

Perception  in  the  sense  gives  to  us  phenomena  in  real 
appearance,  and  not  as  mere  fantastic  ilhision.  But  such 
phenomena  are  in  the  sense  necessarily  fleeting,  isolated,  and 
Btanding  wholly  in  one  self.  The  discriminating  agency  dis- 
tinguishes only  the  content  given  in  the  sensibility,  and 
which  is  a  perpetual  coming  and  departing :  the  construct- 
ing agency  conjoins  this  distinct  content  as  quality  sepa- 
rately, and  thus  in  one  form  of  its  quality  only  as  definite 
object  at  once  ;  and  all  this  only  for  the  self,  in  whose  con- 
sciousness this  distinguishing  and  conjoining  operation  is 
carried  on.  Each  phenomenon  must  thus  occupy  its  own 
space  and  its  own  time  in  the  self-consciousness  ;  its  appear- 
ance disjoined  from  all  other  phenomena,  its  place  from  all 
other  places,  and  its  period  from  all  other  periods,  and  the 
self-consciousness,  in  which  the  appearance,  place,  and  period 
are,  disjoined  from  every  other  self.  From  the  very  func- 
tions of  the  sense  in  their  law  of  operation,  it  must  bo 


204  THE    UNDERSTANDING. 

wholly  impracticable  that  it  should  give  any  thing  other 
than  definite  phenomena,  definite  places,  and  definite  peri- 
ods, as  single  parts  of  nature,  space,  and  time,  and  can  pos- 
sibly know  nothing  of  any  connection  of  these  parts,  as  the 
components  of  one  whole.  All  parts  are  to  the  sense  defi- 
nite totals,  and  the  conception  of  a  universe  of  nature,  and  a 
oneness  of  all  space  and  of  all  time,  is  from  any  agency  in 
the  sense  wholly  impracticable.  One  phenomenon  has  gone 
when  another  has  come,  and  its  place  and  period  came  and 
went  with  it,  and  the  conjunctions  in  the  departed  have  no 
connection  to  the  conjunctions  in  the  becoming ;  and  thus, 
neither  phenomena,  places,  nor  periods,  take  hold  of  each 
other  in  their  arising  and  departing  in  the  consciousness, 
nor  connect  themselves  into  one  nature,  one  space,  or  one 
time. 

As  in  the  perceiving  self  there  can  be  no  such  whole  of 
all  phenomena,  of  all  space,  and  of  all  time,  much  more 
must  it  be  impracticable  for  the  sense  to  give  to  different 
perceiving  selves  a  participation  in  the  same  one  whole  of 
nature,  of  space,  and  of  time ;  inasmuch  as  neither  self  can 
have  a  whole  of  nature,  Space  and  time  not  only,  but  neither 
self  can  at  all  participate  in  any  other's  definite  phenomena, 
places,  and  periods.  In  the  sense,  each  one  perceives  for 
himself,  and  his  phenomenon,  figure  in  space,  and  period  in 
time,  are  each  his  own  only,  and  in  which  none  other  may 
participate.  How  come  we,  then,  by  such  conceptions  as 
one  whole  of  all  nature  of  which  all  definite  phenomena  are 
its  parts,  one  whole  of  all  space  of  which  all  definite  places  are 
but  its  parts,  and  one  whole  of  all  time  of  which  all  definite 
periods  are  but  its  parts  ?  Certainly  by  no  functions  of  the 
sense.     The  operation  of  conjunction  defines  its  object  only 


HIGHER   PACITLTY   THAN   SENSE   NECESSARY.     205 

SO  far  as  the  conjunction  in  unity  is  carried,  and  then  comes 
a  hiatus  separating  the  next  conjunction  in  unity  from 
it,  whether  of  appearance,  place,  or  time.  K  I  construct  a 
circle  in  the  pure  intuition,  I  know  it  as  distinct  from  a 
triangle,  as  occupying  a  space,  and  as  continuing  a  period  ; 
but  when  that  constructed  circle  has  departed  from  the  pure 
intuition,  and  I  now  construct  a  triangle  in  pure  intuition, 
while  I  know  the  triangle  as  distinct  from  a  circle  and  as 
having  place  and  period,  yet  do  I  not  know  this  triangle  and 
that  circle  as  having  any  connection  with  each  other  in 
themselves,  their  place,  or  their  period.  The  circle,  in  its 
conception,  place,  and  period,  has  altogether  departed ;  the 
triangle,  in  its  conception,  place,  and  period,  has  come  in ; 
and  a  chasm,  which  no  construction  by  a  conjunction  in 
unity  can  bridge  over,  separates  them ;  and  my  intuition 
can  not  determine  that  the  conceived  circle  and  triangle, 
and  their  places  and  periods,  have  each  with  each  any  con- 
nection. The  being  of  the  circle  is  gone,  the  place  it  occu- 
pied is  gone,  and  the  period  it  filled  is  gone  ;  and  that  the 
conceived  triangle  now  come,  and  its  place,  and  its  period, 
have  any  connection  in  a  whole  of  all  conceived  being  and 
of  all  space  and  of  all  time  with  the  conceived  circle  in  its 
departed  being,  and  place,  and  period,  the  intuition  can  have 
no  possible  functions  for  determining.  And  so,  precisely, 
with  the  relation  of  a  departed  and  a  becoming  phenomenon. 
The  redness  and  its  place  and  its  period  have  all  departed, 
and  a  whiteness  in  its  place  and  period  is  now  in  its  becom- 
ing ;  but  for  the  sense  there  is  a  chasm  of  nihility  between 
the  two,  and  an  impossibility  of  saying  that  the  redness  and 
the  whiteness  are  connected  in  one  whole  of  nature,  their 
places  in  one  whole  of  all  space,  and  their  periods  in  one 


206  THE    UNDERSTANDING. 

whole  of  all  time.  To  the  sense,  every  definite  construction 
of  a  phenomenon  in  place  and  period,  stands  only  in  its  own 
isolation.  It  can  construct  definite  phenomena,  in  their  dis- 
tinct quality,  into  diflTerent  figures  and  periods  definitely ;  but 
it  can  only  construct,  and  from  one  construction  to  another 
it  can  give  no  connection.  Its  definite  phenomena  it  can 
not  connect  into  one  universe  of  nature ;  its  definite  places, 
into  one  whole  of  space ;  nor  its  definite  periods,  into  one 
whole  of  time.  Each  intellect  in  self-consciousness  must 
construct  its  own  phenomena,  and  these  will  be  perpetually 
departing  and  utterly  disjoined  from  the  becoming;  and 
thus  to  no  self-consciousness  can  there  be  in  the  sense  any 
connection  into  one  whole  of  nature,  of  space,  and  of  time, 
nor  can  one  self-consciousness  in  its  constructions  commune 
with  any  other  self  in  its  constructions.  Were  there  no 
higher  functions  than  the  sense,  phenomena  in  their  places 
and  periods  would  be  a  mere  rhapsody  of  becoming  and 
departing  constructions',  and  in  such  a  hap-hazard  dance  of 
appearances,  that  all  conception  of  a  connected  whole  of 
nature,  of  space,  and  of  time,  would  be  an  impossibility.  In 
order  that  we  may  know  other  than  isolated  phenomena  in 
their  separate  places  and  periods,  a  higher  faculty  than  that 
of  conjunction  in  sense  is  necessary. 


FACITLTY    OF   UNDERSTANDING   E  X  PL  A  I  N  E  D  .  20i 


II 


THE  EXPOSITION  OF  THIS  HiaHER  AGENCY  AS 
UNDERSTANDING. 

The  intellectual  agency  gives  two  different  kinds  of  rel* 
tions  in  the  consciousness.  One  kind  is  that  which  has 
already  been  considered  in  the  sense  as  the  operation  of  con- 
junction. The  diverse  elements  are  taken  in  their  manifold- 
ness  and  conjoined  in  unity,  so  that  they  stand  together 
within  limits  and  become  a  total,  and  the  bond  which  holds 
them  in  unity,  is  both  different  from,  and  external  to,  the  ele- 
ments themselves.  The  elements  are  brought  into  juxta- 
position, and  make  a  whole  as  an  aggregate  simply,  and 
thus  the  relation  is  one  of  collocation  only.  When  I  con- 
struct a  triangle  in  pure  intuition,  I  merely  conjoin  the 
diversity  within  external  limits,  arid  the  area  of  the  triangle 
becomes  a  whole,  simply  in  virtue  of  this  external  defining 
of  the  diverse  points  contained  within  the  limits.  So  also 
in  the  construction  of  any  phenomenon  in  its  form,  the  same 
relationship  of  collocation  only  is  effected.  The  content  in 
the  sensibility,  as  color  in  vision,  is  conjoined  in  attention, 
and  thereby  defined  in  its  figure,  and  thus  becomes  a  defi- 
nite whole  as  colored  surface  placed  within  outer  limits.  Of 
this  kind  are  all  the  relations  of  the  sense,  pure  or  empirical, 
inasmuch  as  the  operation  of  conjunction  can  effect  no  other 
relationships,  and  this  is  the  only  operation  in  the  sense 
which  may  give  any  relations.  These  may  be  termed 
Mathematical  relations. 

Another  kind  of  relationship  is  that  where  the  elements 


208  THE    UNDEBSTANDINQ. 

ai*e  held  together  by  an  inherent  bond,  and  all  coalesce  in  one 
whole,  and  which  is  thus  not  a  mere  aggregation  and  rela- 
tionship of  collocation,  but  a  relationship  of  coalition.  All 
the  parts  are  reciprocally  inter-dependent,  and  together  con- 
stitute an  organic  total.  Thus  with  the  whole  plant  or  ani- 
mal, the  elements  are  not  merely  together  in  a  mass,  but 
there  is  an  inner  bond  in  which  they  all  grow  together 
The  union  is  not  local  or  periodical,  but  dynamical :  and  as 
distinguished  from  the  former,  we  may  term  this  kind  Phil- 
osopMcal  relations. 

A  Judgment  is  a  determined  relationship  between  two 
or  more  cognitions,  one  of  which  qualities  and  is  predicate^ 
the  other  of  which  is  qualified  and  is  subject.  When  in  the 
possession  of  one  cognition  I  can  by  an  analysis  take  the 
other  cognition  from  it,  and  predicate  this  latter  of  the 
former,  it  is  an  Analytical  Judgment.  Thus  of  the  cognV' 
tion  of  a  line,  I  need  only  an  analysis  of  what  is  already* 
contained  in  the  cognition  and  I  shall  find  the  further  cogni- 
tions of  extension,  divisibility,  etc.,  and  which  I  can  predi- 
cate of  the  former  cognition  and  say  at  once  in  an  Analyti- 
cal Judgment,  the  line  is  extended ;  is  divisible,  etc.  The 
validity  of  such  judgments  is  determined  in  the  clearness  of 
the  analysis  itself  It  does  not  add  anything  to  our  knowl- 
edge, for  we  have  only  that  in  the  judgment  which  we 
already  possessed  in  the  original  cognition  ;  but  the  separate 
analysis  has  made  the  original  cognition  more  clear,  although 
it  has  thus  been  not  at  all  extended. 

When,  in  some  way  other  than  from  the  cognition 
already  possessed,  I  attain  a  new  cognition  in  a  determined 
relationship  to  a  given  one,  and  thus  add  something  new  as 
predicate  of  an  old  cognition,  it  is  a  Synthetical  Judgment; 


FACULTY    OF    UNDERSTANDIXG   EXPLAINED.    209 

and  in  this  the  cognition  is  extended  over  more  than  its 
former  ground.  Thus  the  cognition  of  a  phenomenon  as 
color  may  not  only  be  analyzed,  and  hence  in  an  Analytical 
Judgment  it  may  be  affirmed  that  the  color  has  place,  has 
shape,  has  divisibility,  etc.,  but  that  which  no  analysis  can 
get  from  it,  a  further  observation  in  experience  may  find  as 
new  and  add  to  it,  and  thus  affirm  in  a  Synthetical  Judg- 
ment, that  the  color  is  changed  in  its  intensity,  its  place,  its 
shape  ;  or  it  is  in  motion,  is  blended  with  the  other  colors, 
or  is  faded  away,  etc.  The  validity  of  this  form  of  a  Judg 
ment  depends  wholly  upon  the  valid  attainment  of  the  ne\^ 
cognition. 

And  precisely  in  this  validity  of  the  attainment  of  the 
new  cognition  to  be  predicated  in  a  judgment  as  qualifying 
the  old,  as  it  diffiars  in  evidence  between  the  Mathematical 
and  the  Philosophical  relation,  is  the  importance  and  neces- 
sity of  the  exposition  of  this  higher  agency  as  an  under- 
standing. Mathematical  relationships  are  given  in  the  con- 
structions of  the  sense,  and  the  operation  of  conjunction  can 
give  only  such  relations.  The  construction  being  effected, 
the  relation  of  all  particulars  in  the  diagram  stand  open  in 
the  consciousness  to  an  immediate  beholding,  and  the  new 
cognition  for  an  Extended  Judgment  is  thus  a  direct  intui- 
tion. The  specific  relation  which  exposes  the  new  cognition, 
is  seen  in  the  construction  ;  and  thus  the  synthetic  judg- 
ment is  manifestly  valid.  If  I  construct  a  circle  in  pure  in- 
tuition, the  relation  of  its  radii  is  immediately  seen  in  the 
construction  itself,  and  the  new  conception  of  equality  thus 
attained  is  legitimately  added  in  a  synthetic  judgment ;  and 
80  with  all  possible  mathematical  relations,  whether  pure  or 
empirical.     The  process  is  synthetical,  viz.,  the  adding  of 


210  THE    UNDERSTANDING. 

some  new  cognition  in  a  judgment  through  all  the  process : 
but  this  new  cognition  is  always  attained,  in  an  immediate 
intuition  in  the  consti^ctitn  itself.  An  exact  definition 
gives  occasion  for  an  affirmation  of  the  exact  relationship, 
and  the  same  for  a  phenomenon  in  its  empirical  form  as  in  a 
pure  form  in  the  primitive  intuition.  The  judgment,  though 
synthetical,  is  also  intuitive. 

But  this  can  not  so  be  effected  in  philosophical  relations. 
The  new  cognition  is  not  one  that  admits  of  becoming  at 
all  an  immediate  intuition.  There  can  be  no  construction 
effected  in  which  it  may  be  seen.  I  may  construct  the  form 
of  two  colors  in  space,  and  in  the  construction  see  all  the 
relations  in  space  of  the  two  phenomena,  and  thus  affirm 
that  one  is  square  and  the  other  is  circular,  one  is  without 
or  within,  above  or  below,  larger  or  smaller,  etc.,  and  in  time 
earlier  or  later,  of  longer  or  shorter  continuance,  etc.,  than 
the  other.  But  I  can  not  so  construct  any  two  phenomena, 
as  to  see  in  the  construction  that  they  both  inhere  in  one 
ground,  or  that  both  originate  in  one  source.  The  new  con- 
ception is  of  an  inner  bond  which  will  not  allow  of  any  con- 
struction, and  can  not  thus  become  intuition.  That  in  which 
the  phenomena  coalesce,  and  by  virtue  of  which  they  are 
held  in  one  whole,  is  altogether  supersensual,  inasmuch  as  it 
is  wholly  beyond  the  conditions  of  any  conjunction  in  unity. 
That  the  redness  and  the  smoothness  are  in  one  place  and 
period,  may  be  afl[irmed  from  the  sight  and  the  touch,  and  a 
construction  may  be  made  to  represent  them  externally,  by 
a  painting ;  but  that  they  inhere  in  one  ground  as  their  sub- 
ject, which  we  call  a  rose,  we  can  not  make  to  be  immedi- 
ate intuition,  because  no  construction  can  possibly  give  this 
supersensuous  ground,  ^x  common  subject,  to  be  immedi- 


FACULTY    OF    UNDERSTANDING   E  XP  L  A  I  N  E  D  .  21 1 

ately  seen.  That  the  phenomenon  of  heat,  and  that  of 
evaporation,  have  a  relation  in  their  periods,  and  what  that 
relation  is,  may  be  affirmed  from  a  construction  in  the  sense 
intuitively ;  but  that  they  are  connected  as  source  and  con- 
sequence, by  an  inner  bond  of  causality,  can  not  be  an  intu- 
ition of  the  sense,  inasmuch  as  no  construction  can  possibly 
give  this  to  be  immediately  seen.  Philosopical  relations  are 
altogether  of  this  supersensuous  kind,  and  their  inner  bond, 
through  ^\'hich  all  coalesces  in  the  unity  of  a  whole,  is  be- 
yond the  practicability  of  any  construction.  The  forms  of 
space  and  time  can  have  nothing  in  which  it  may  be  repre- 
sented. 

The  philosophical  relation  always  involves  a  new  cogni 
tion,  which  can  not  be  attained  by  any  analysis  of  the  phe- 
nomena that  are  held  in  relationship  by  it,  and  thus  the 
judgment  is  always  synthetic.  That  the  two  phenomena 
are  affirmed  to  be  thus  related  is  by  reason  only  of  this  in- 
ner supersensual  bond,  and  the  adding  of  this  in  the  judg- 
ment is  an  extension  of  the  cognition,  and  as  it  is  thus  no 
product  of  an  analysis,  and  as  before  seen  is  no  possible  in- 
tuition in  any  construction,  it  must  somehow  be  attained  in 
its  own  peculiar  manner,  and  demand  that  for  it  a  peculiar 
function  should  be  supplied,  other  than  any  thing  which  the 
faculty  of  the  sense  can  give.  As  conjunction  only  puts 
together  in  collocation,  while  this  gives  internally  a  coali- 
tion; the  first  a  collection,  this  a  connection ;  I  shall  so  dis- 
tinguish it  as  the  operation  of  connection.  And  as  the 
intellect  conjoins  in  the  sense,  so  its  connecting  agency  be- 
longs to  the  faculty  of  the  understanding.  This  faculty  of 
the  understanding,  as  that  which  gives  the  relations  of  phe- 
nomena in  their  inherent  grounds  and   sources,  and  thns 


212  THE    UNDERSTANDING. 

from  being  conjoined  into  isolated  qualities  they  become 
known  as  connected  into  existing  things,  it  is  now  our  busi- 
ness fully  to  investigate.  By  this  distinction  of  operation, 
as  connecting  and  not  constructing  agent,  we  have  wholly 
separated  it  from  the  faculty  of  the  sense  already  examined, 
and  in  this  isolation  of  being,  the  claim  is,  that  we  attain  an 
a  priori  cognition  of  how  it  is  possible  that  such  an  opera- 
tion of  connection  may  be  effected,  and  thus  how  an  under- 
standing must  be  regulated  in  its  functions  if  it  is  to  have 
any  synthetic  judgments  of  philosophical  relations,  and  this 
will  give  the  understanding  in  its  Idea.  It  will  then  be 
necessary  in  another  Chapter,  to  attain  in  the  facta  a  Law 
in  actual  operation,  the  precise  correlative  to  this  a  priori 
idea,  in  which  we  shall  have  a  valid  science  of  the  Under- 
standing, as  before  of  the  Sense.  We  may  then  use  these 
conclusions  for  an  Ontological  Demonstration  of  the  valid 
being  of  the  objects  given  in  the  Understanding. 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE  UNDERSTANDING  IN  ITS  SUBJECTIVE 
IDEA. 


SECTION    I. 

THE   UNDERSTANDING   NECESSARILY   DISCURSIVE. 

Conjunction  gives  definite  form  in  space  and  time,  and 
thus  all  conception  of  its  products  is  of  that  which  is 
brought  directly  under  an  intuition  either  pure  or  empirical. 
But  such  products  can  have  no  other  relationship  to  each 
other  in  our  knowledge,  than  that  which  belongs  to  the 
forms  of  space  and  time.  They  may  be  conjoined  in  space 
or  time,  but  can  not  thus  be  known  as  connected  in  their 
own  internal  being.  A  dynamical  connection  can  not  be 
constructed,  and  can  not,  therefore,  be  accurately  defined ; 
it  can  admit  only  of  a  description  which  shall  suggest,  not 
of  a  definition  which  shall  make  to  appear.  The  bond 
which  constitutes  the  relation  is  thought  as  inherent  in  the 
cognition  related,  and  thus  while  the  related  cognitions  are 
constructed,  the  bond  as  their  inherent  connective  is  not  and 
can  not  be  constructed,  but  is  a  new  cognition  of  a  very 
peculiar  kind.  Thus  two  billiard  balls  may  be  constructed 
in  space,  and  the  meeting  of  the  one  in  motion  with  the 
other  at  rest  and  the  consequent  displacement  of  the  latter 
may  be  constructed  in  time,  and  the  point  in  space  and  in 


214        THE    UNDERSTANDING   IN    ITS   IDEA. 

time  of  their  actual  contact  may  be  given  in  an  intuition  by 
the  construction  ^  but  all  this  will  not  in  the  least  serve  to 
give  the  cognition  of  the  dynamical  bond,  which  we  may 
in  this  case  call  impulse^  that  inherently  connects  the  im- 
pinging of  the  first  and  the  displacement  of  the  last 
together.  This  cognition  of  impulse,  here,  is  not  only  new 
numerically,  but  quite  new  generically ;  the  cognition  of  the 
balls,  and  their  contact,  and  their  antecedent  and  conse- 
quent motion,  all  admitting  of  a  construction  and  thus  of  an 
accurate  definition  in  the  immediate  intuition,  but  the  cog- 
nition of  impulse  not  at  all  admitting  of  such  construction, 
definition,  and  direct  intuition.  It  can  only  be  thought^  not 
perceived. 

Precisely  thus,  with  all  connection  as  ground  ;  it  can  no 
more  be  constructed,  than  can  the  connection  of  impulse 
above  given  as  source  of  the  displacement  of  the  second 
ball.  The  form  of  the  whiteness  and  that  of  the  hardness 
of  the  ivory  ball  may  be  constructed  in  the  vision  and  the 
touch,  and  both  may  be  referred  to  the  same  place  and  the 
same  period  intuitively,  and  thus  a  definite  conception  of 
their  relationship  in  space  and  time  may  be  attained,  but 
this  will  not  at  all  serve  to  give  the  common  ground  in 
which  both  the  whiteness  and  the  hardness  inhere,  and 
which  gives  to  them  the  relations  of  qualities  in  one  thing. 
This  last  is  a  cognition  as  connection,  and  not  at  all  as  con- 
junction ;  it  is  only  thought,  it  can  not  be  perceived.  It 
belongs  wholly  to  the  understanding  in  its  work  of  connec- 
tion, and  can  not  be  attained  by  the  sense  in  its  work  of 
conjunction. 

And  now,  to  distinguish  this  cognition  of  the  bond  as 
product  of  the  operation  of  connection  from  the  product  in 


THE    UNDERSTANDING    DISCUKSIYE.       215 

the  operation  of  conjunction,  we  must  appropriate  an  exclu- 
sive term.  The  whiteness  and  hardness,  the  motion,  con- 
tact, and  displacement  of  the  billiard  balls  we  call  phenom- 
ena^ because  they  are  made  to  immediately  appear  in  a  defi- 
nite construction.  They  may  differ  as  quality  connected  in 
their  ground,  and  as  event  connected  in  their  source ;  but  all 
are  alike  phenomena,  inasmuch  as  each  is  made  to  appear, 
and  all  are  given  in  the  sense.  The  antithetic  term  to  phe- 
nomenon, from  the  same  Greek  language,  would  be  noume- 
non  y  but  as  this  has  been  Diuch  less  familiarly  incorporate] 
hito  the  English  language  ^q  shall,  at  the  expense  of  deriv- 
ation from  another  tongue,  take  an  equivalent  term  for  this 
antithesis  from  the  Latin  notio^  and  call  this  new  conception 
which  the  understanding  in  its  work  of  connection  can  alone 
supply,  Notion.  This  is  to  have  its  exclusive  application  in 
this  work  to  this  specific  cognition — the  bond  of  relation- 
ship as  product  of  connection ;  and  never  to  be  applied  to 
any  product  of  conjunction.  Thus  we  shall  not  say  a  notion 
of  hardness,  whiteness,  motion,  contact,  displacement,  etc., 
all  of  which  come  under  the  term  phenomenon;  but  we 
shall  say  a  notion  of  the  ground,  source,  etc.,  for  the  con- 
nection of  phenomena.  Phenomena  will  be  conjoined  by 
phenomena,  but  can  be  connected  only  by  the  notion.  The 
phenomenon  is  wholly  in  the  sense,  the  notion  is  wholly  in 
the  understanding. 

The  notion,  as  supplied  in  the  understanding,  is  put  un  - 
der  the  phenomena  as  substratum  in  which  they  inhere,  or 
as  source  on  which  they  depend ;  and,  as  it  is  a  peculiar 
operation  of  the  intellect  which  receives  this  notion,  and 
makes  it  to  stand  under  the  phenomena  as  their  connectiou, 
so    this  function  of  the  intellect,  as  faculty  for  connection, 


'216        THE    UXDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

is  appropriately  termed  the  under  standing.  The  same  intel- 
lect conjoins  the  diversity — and  this  is  the  faculty  of  the 
sense — which  connects  the  phenomena — and  this  is  the  fac- 
ulty of  the  understanding. 

This  connecting  of  phenomena  in  their  grounds  and 
sources  by  the  understanding  is  the  act  of  thinking^  and  the 
product  should  be  termed  a  philosophical  or  a  logical  judg- 
ment^ distinguishing  it  from  the  process  of  conjoining  in 
unity,  which  is  the  act  of  attending,  and  the  product  of 
which,  as  intuitively  affirmed,  is  a  mathematical  judgment. 
Both  are  synthetic,  inasmuch  as  both  attain  a  new  cognition 
in  which  the  relationship  is  given ;  but  in  one  case,  as  the 
mathematical,  the  new  cognition  is  attained  by  an  immediate 
intuition  in  a  construction ;  and  in  the  other,  the  philosophi- 
cal, the  new  cognition  can  not  be  constructed  and  thus  can- 
not be  intuition,  but  is  wholly  supplied  as  thought  or  notion 
in  the  understanding.  This  connecting  of  phenomena  in 
their  notion  is  pure  thinking,  when  the  phenomena  are  not 
given  in  the  sense,  but  are  merely  the  conceptions  of  phen- 
omena by  a  prolepsis  or  anticipation  purely  mental.  The 
whole  work  is  thus  entirely  intellectual.  The  anticipated 
content  is  constructed  in  the  sense  when  there  is  no  actual 
sensation,  and  is  thus  a  conceived  phenomenon  only ;  and 
the  notion,  as  connective,  is  wholly  supplied  in  the  under- 
standing as  pure  conception  also ;  and  thus  the  whole  pro- 
cess, though  combining  both  intellectual  conjunction  and  in- 
tellectual connection,  is  wholly  a  mental  conception  and 
thei'efore  pure  thinking.  Empirical  thinking  is  when  real 
phenomena  are  thought  as  connected  m  their  grounds  or 
sources.  This  last  is  properly  experience — the  connecting 
of  our  perceived  phenomena  in  their  notions,  as  their  ground 


THE    UNDERSTANDING    DISCUKSIVE.  217 

or  source  of  being.  When  phenomena  are  thought  as  con- 
nected in  their  ground,  the  product  is  called  a  thing  ;  when 
as  connected  in  their  source,  the  product  is  an  event ;  and 
when  both  thing  and  event  are  conceived  simply  as  origina- 
ted being,  they  2ixq  facts  {facta^  res  gestce). 

This  connecting  of  things  and  events  may  go  on  indefi- 
nitely* and  when  it  is  pure  thinking,  the  whole  product  is  a 
train  of  thought ;  when  empirical  thinking,  it  is  an  order 
of  experience.  This  thinking  in  judgments  in  the  under- 
standing, it  is  manifest  can  never  be  made  intuitive.  The 
phenomenal  cognitions  may  be  constructed  in  their  conjunc- 
tions of  space  and  time,  and  their  relationship  of  conjunc- 
tion be  intuitively  apprehended  ;  but  the  notional  cognition 
can  not  be  constructed,  nor  intuitively  seen  in  any  construc- 
tion, and  thus  the  relationship  of  connection  can  not  be  in- 
tuitively apprehended.  We  can  never  so  construct  the 
whiteness  and  the  hardness  of  the  billiard  ball  as  intuitively 
to  see  the  ground  in  which  they  are  connected,  nor  so  con- 
struct the  impinging  and  the  displacing  as  intuitively  to  see 
the  source  in  one  out  of  which  the  other  springs.  Our  con- 
struction of  the  whiteness  and  hardness  may  give  the  round- 
ness in  space,  and  w^e  may  thus  call  it  a  hall ;  but  this  is 
still  only  quality  and  not  ground.  The  qualities  of  white- 
ness and  hardness  and  roundness  are  all  thought  a"s  in  one 
and  the  same  ground,  which  we  call  ivory  y  but  this  ground, 
called  ivory,  is  wholly  supplied  as  a  notion,  and  not  at  all  as 
an  intuition.  So  also,  our  construction  of  the  impinging 
and  the  displacing  may  give  succession  in  time,  and  we  may 
thus  call  one  antecedent  and  the  other  consequent,  and  the 
whole  in  combination  sequence;  but  this  also  is  still  event, 
not  source.     The  events  of  impinging,  and  displacing,  aiul 

10 


218        THE    UNDEEST  ANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

theii*  sequence,  are  all  thought  as  in  one  point  of  connection, 
which  is  a  source  that  we  here  call  impuUe  ;  but  this  source, 
called  impulse,  is  wholly  supplied  in  the  understanding  as  a 
notion,  and  not  in  the  sense  as  an  intuition.  So  must  it  ever 
be  in  all  thinkmg  in  the  understanding,  that  the  connective 
in  the  judgment  can  never  be  supplied  by  a  construction 
and  can  thus  never  be  made  an  intuition.  The  difference 
between  the  mathematical  judgment  that  a  straight  line  is 
the  shortest  that  may  be  drawn  between  two  points,  and 
the  philosophical  judgment  that  the  whiteness  and  hardness 
are  qualities  of  the  ivory,  or  that  the  displacement  of  the 
second  ball  by  the  first  was  from  impulse,  is  at  once  palpa- 
ble. In  the  first,  as  mathematical  judgment,  we  construct 
the  cognitions  and  we  intuitively  see  in  our  construction  the 
new  cognition  of  relationship,  which  we  name  the  shortest ; 
but  in  the  other,  we  can  possibly  make  no  construction  that 
shall  give  intuitively  the  new  cognition  of  relationship  which 
we  name  the  ivory  as  ground,  or  the  impulse  as  source ;  and 
from  which  connectives  only  can  we  form  our  philosophical 
judgment. 

In  the  philosophical  judgment,  we  are  obliged  to  receive 
the  notion  in  the  understanding,  and  then  the  relationship  is 
always  apprehended  only  by  a  discursus  through  that  no- 
tion ;  and  thus  the  judgment  is  necessarily  discursive^  not 
intuitive.  We  go  from  the  whiteness  to  the  hardness,  in 
our  connecting  of  these  as  qualities  in  a  thing,  through  the 
notion  of  ivory  as  common  substratum ;  and  we  go  from 
the  impinging  to  the  displacing,  in  our  connecting  of  these 
as  events,  through  the  notion  of  impulse  as  source  in  the 
antecedent  for  the  origination  of  the  consequent.  The  judg- 
ment can  only  be  formed  from  the  process  of  connection ; 


THE    UNDEES  TAN  DING    DISCURSIVE.        219 

and  the  connection  can  only  be  made  in  the  notion  ;  and  the 
notion  is  supplied  by  no  possible  intuition.  We  can  thus 
connect,  ^.  e.,  think  in  the  understanding,  in  no  other  possi- 
ble manner  than  discursively.  The  understanding  is  faculty 
only  for  connecting,  not  for  constructing ;  for  thinking,  not 
for  attending  ;  for  discursively  concluding,  not  for  intuitively 
beholding.  It  attains  philosophical  or  logical  judgments, 
not  mathematical  axioms.  Its  judgments  are  truly  depend- 
ent upon  an  a  priori  cognition,  and  are  conditional  for  all 
experience.  That  I  have  the  sensation  of  warmth  may  be 
given  in  the  sense,  and  when,  and  how  much ;  but  all  this 
will  be  isolated  sensation  and  not  connected  experience, 
except  as  I  can  connect  that  sensation  with  other  sensa- 
tions in  their  common  grounds  and  sources,  and  say  the 
sun  or  the  fire  warms  me.  But  in  order  to  such  judg- 
ment in  experience  that  the  sun  warms  me,  I  must  assume 
the  notions  of  both  ground  and  source,  and,  discursively, 
through  these  conclude  upon  the  judgment  in  experience. 
The  experience  does  not  and  can  not  give  the  notion  ;  the 
notion  is  conditional  for  the  connected  experience. 

That  the  notion  is  conditional  for  all  experience,  as  a 
connection  of  the  phenomena  into  things,  should  be  fully 
apprehended,  and  may  be  very  conclusively  determined. 
Thus,  I  may  have  the  definite  and  distinct  qualities  of  a 
hardness,  a  coldness,  a  brittleness,  a  transparency,  etc.,  as 
real  phenomena  in  perception,  but  they  are  all  necessarily, 
separate  from  each  other  as  given  in  perception,  and  no  con- 
junction can  go  any  further  than  to  give  to  each  its  com- 
plete form  as  phenomenon,  and  let  them  stand  singly  and 
separately  in  the  consciousness.  But  when  the  understand 
ing  has  its  notion  of  a  ground  common  to  them  all,  the 


220        THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

thinking  may  then  connect  them  all  in  it  by  a  discursus 
from  one  to  another  through  it,  and  give  to  this  notion  as 
connective  ground  a  name  as  thing,  and  of  which  the  phen- 
omena will  all  be  held  in  a  judgment  as  common  properties 
or  qualities,  and  I  may  then  say,  the  Ice  is  hard,  is  cold,  etc. 
My  perception  in  the  sense  has  given  the  phenomena  only ; 
my  thinking  in  the  understanding  has  given  me  all  the  separ 
rate  phenomena  to  be  connected  in  one  thing ;  but  such  a 
judgment  that  the  one  thing — Ice — contained  in  itself  all 
these  phenomena  as  its  qualities,  and  which  is  essential  to  a 
proper  experience  of  such  qualities,  could  not  be  attained 
except  I  had  first  assumed  this  notion  of  a  common  ground, 
through  which  to  make  my  discursus  in  thinking  the  phenom- 
ena respectively  to  inhere  in  it.  So,  in  the  same  manner  I  may 
perceive  the  phenomena  of  a  liquidness,  limpidness,  fluidity, 
etc.,  and  by  a  supplied  notion  as  ground  I  may  connect  them 
as  the  properties  of  one  thing  and  call  it  water  ;  and  then 
again,  I  may  perceive  the  phenomena  of  volatility,  expansi- 
bility, elasticity,  etc.,  and  connect  them  in  a  common  ground 
in  the  understanding  and  call  it  vapor  ;  and  as  the  result,  I 
shall  have  the  three  things  with  their  respective  qualities,  as 
ice,  water,  and  vapor.  Neither  of  these  things  could  have 
been  given  in  a  connected  experience,  but  only  the  phenom- 
ena singly  in  perception,  except  as  the  understanding  had 
been  supplied  with  their  notional  connectives,  and  thought 
them  in  a  judgment  discursively  thereby. 

But,  still  further,  with  these  three  things  distinct  in  a 
judgment  of  experience,  I  may  proceed  in  the  understand- 
ing and  supply  a  higher  notional  connective  as  common  source 
for  them  all,  and  think  these  three  things  to  have  success 
sively  come  out  of  one  and  the  same  material  substance 


THE    UNDERSTANDING    DISCURSIVE.      221 

which  has  now  been  ice,  and  now  water,  and  now  vapor, 
and  thus  on  through  all  possible  changes.  But  it  is  mani- 
fest  that  no  such  connection  in  this  comprehensive  judgment 
of  an  experience  could  have  been  effected  except  as  first  this 
higher  notional,  as  common  source,  had  been  supplied  in  the 
understanding.  And  thus  ever,  in  all  our  judgments  of  ex- 
perience, whether  more  or  less  comprehensive,  the  experi- 
ence does  not  give  the  connection,  but  the  connection  pro- 
duces the  judgment  of  experience,  and  this  rests  wholly 
upon  a  supplied  notional  in  the  understanding.  No  possi- 
ble thinking  in  discursive  judgments  can  be  effected,  and 
thus  no  experience  can  be,  except  through  the  use  of  a 
notion  supplied  in  the  understanding.  The  judgment  can- 
not be  in  the  sense,  for  the  sense  can  not  supply  the  notional, 
nor  make  the  discursive  connection  through  it ;  but  the  judg- 
ment is  according  to  the  sense,  for  it  must  be  the  connection 
of  only  such  phenomena  as  are  given  in  the  sense.  We 
may  thus  say  of  the  understanding,  that  it  is  a  higher  fac- 
ulty than  the  sense,  but  though  transcending  the  sense,  it 
yet  is  a  faculty  judging  according  to  the  sense.  It  connects 
only  what  is  first  given  in  the  sense. 


SECTION    II. 

SPACE   AND   IIME   THE   NECESSARY   MEDIA   FOR   DETERMINING 
CONNECTION   THROUGH   A   DISCURSUS.    • 

Thinking  is  the  intellectual  operation  of  connecting  the 
cognitions  supplied  in  the  sense  through  the  cognitions  sup- 
plied in  the  understanding.     The  sense-cognitions  are  of  the 


222        THE    UNDERSTANDING    IT    ITS    IDEA. 

phenomenal,  the  understanding-cognitions  are  of  the  no- 
tional. The  intellectual  process  is  ever  from  one  sense-cog- 
nition to  another  by  a  discursus  through  an  understanding- 
cognition,  and  the  judgment  resulting  is  wholly  synthetical 
— adding  the  necessary  connection  of  the  phenomenal  in  the 
notional — and  thereby  giving  universality  to  the  ultimate 
judgment,  as  that  all  phenomena  must  stand  in  some  ground, 
or  must  originate  in  some  source.  And  the  great  question 
is — how  verify  this  synthesis  ?  How  show  that  the  addi- 
tion of  the  notional  as  necessary  and  universal  connective  in 
such  judgments  is  valid  ?  All  experience  and  all  inductive 
science  rest  alike  upon  such  synthetic  judgments,  and  the 
former  is  wholly  an  illusion,  and  the  latter  a  mere  straining 
of  speculations  through  a  fictitious  notional  which  can  leave 
in  the  sieve  only  an  empty  ideal,  except  as  this  whole  pro- 
cess of  thinking  in  judgments  may  receive  an  a  priori  deter- 
mination. 

If  we  attempt  to  explain  such  necessary  connection,  as 
did  Hume,  through  the  frequency  of  observation  in  experi- 
ence, and  thus  that  habit  only  induces  the  conviction  of  neces- 
sary connection,  we  leave  the  judgment  to  rest  upon  mere 
credulity ;  and  all  experience  and  all  philosophical  science 
stand  upon  no  firmer  basis  than  "  a  belief"  engendered  in 
"  custom."  If  we  say  with  Brown,  that  there  are  only  the 
phenomena  in  a  certain  "  invariable  order  of  sequences," 
and  that  all  conviction  of  necessary  connection  is  from  the 
constitution  of  the  human  mind  alone,  which  is  so  made 
that  by  a  ceaseless  and  infallible  prophecy  it  simply  foretells 
the  coming  of  the  consequent  in  the  appearance  of  the  ante- 
cedent, we  leave  again  all  validity  to  experience  and  induc- 
tive science  wholly  amid  the  mysteries  of  this  constitutional 


MEDIA    FOR    DETERMINING     A    DISCURSUS.    223 

and  instinctive  prophesying.  To  take,  with  Reid,  this  neces- 
sary connection  as  the  mere  dictum  of  common  sense,  and 
make  this  an  ultimate  fact  in  which  all  experience  and  all 
philosophy  must  begin  and  back  of  which  no  investigation 
can  reach,  is  to  admit  at  once  that  experience  and  philosophy 
have  only  an  assumed  original,  and  that  neither  can  possibly 
return  back  and  examine  the  source  in  which  it  originates, 
nor  expel  the  bane  of  skepticism  from  either  the  fountain 
or  its  streams. 

When  we  have  demonstrated  the  reality  of  the  phenom- 
ena by  our  foregoing  a  priori  process,  still  all  the  above 
methods  of  accounting  for  the  conviction  of  the  necessary 
connection  of  the  phenomena  leaves  the  whole  as  a  mere 
matter  of  credulity  or  assumption,  and  no  thinking  can  ter- 
minate in  a  judgment  that  shall  have  any  higher  validity 
than  mere  opinion.  The  roundness,  whiteness,  hardness, 
etc.,  are  veritable  phenomena ;  but  that  they  are  all  con- 
nected by  an  inherence  in  one  notion  as  their  ground,  and 
which  we  call  "  ivory,"  and  are  thus  qualities  in  one  thing, 
we  may  believe  or  hold  as  opinion  but  can  never  determine. 
The  motion  of  one  ball,  and  its  contact  with  another,  and 
the  retardation  in  the  first  and  displacement  of  the  last  ball 
are  real  phenomena  ;  but  that  the  retardation  and  displace- 
ment are  connected  in  one  source  with  the  motion  and  the 
contact  which  precede  them,  and  which  as  connective  notion 
we  call  "  impulse,"  and  thus  that  they  are  events  held  toge- 
ther by  one  agency,  we  may  believe  or  opine,  but  we  can 
never  know.  And  all  philosophy  founded  upon  any  induc- 
tion of  such  facts,  however  broadly  and  carefully  made, 
must  also  alike  rest  only  upon  mere  opinion.  We  are  in  this 
position  utterly  precluded  from  all  power  of  reply  to   'hat 


224       THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

skeptic  who  shall  affirm  that  he  has  examined  all  these 
sources  of  a  necessary  connection,  and  has  satisfied  himself 
that  their  whole  induced  conviction  is  a  mere  mist  and  fog- 
bank  deceptively  rising  over  a  stagnant  understanding,  and 
which  is  utterly  dissipated  in  thin  air  whenever  the  sunlight 
strikes  upon  it  from  above,  or  the  ebb  and  flow  of  active 
thought  agitates  it  from  beneath.  But,  surely,  the  interest 
in  the  human  mind  for  science^  and  the  intellectual  yearning 
for  established  truth  will  never  permit  an  acquiescence  in  such 
desponding  conclusions,  until  skepticism  has  itself  become  a 
demonstration ;  and  the  only  truth  found  to  be  this,  that 
man  can  verify  no  truth ;  and  that  the  only  foundation  for 
science  is  at  last  seen  to  be  self-contradiction  and  absurdity. 
The  success  in  our  a  j^^'iori  investigation  of  the  sense, 
and  our  complete  exposition  of  the  operation  of  conjunction, 
should  encourage  to  the  same  effort  and  anticipated  result 
in  the  field  of  the  understanding  and  the  a  priori  explica- 
tion of  the  operation  of  connection,  and  under  the  influence 
of  so  well  grounded  a  hope  the  attempt  to  realize  it  should 
not  be  easily  abandoned.  We  are  not  to  take  the  under- 
standing-cognition upon  trust,  nor  merely  because  we  need 
it  as  our  connective  conditional  for  all  possible  thinking,  and 
which  can  give  for  philosophy  no  other  basis  than  an  un- 
verified empiricism  :  nor  are  we  to  assume  it  merely  as  the 
condition  and  law  of  our  subjective  thinking,  and  thereby 
attain  those  splendid  ideal  systems  of  nature,  the  soul, 
and  God,  which  have  so  highly  distinguished  the  great  mas- 
ters of  modern  German  Metaphysics ;  but  which,  denying 
any  thing  as  legitimately  in  the  possession  of  philosophy 
beyond  the  subjective  process  itself,  have  only  issued,  and 
for  the  future  ever  must  only  issue,  in  the  emptiness  of  ap 


MEDIA    FOR    DETERMINING    A    DISCURStJS.   226 

entirely  misnamed  Rationalism,  and  which  at  last  is  nothing 
else  than  the  absurdity  of  a  transcendental  Pantlieism. 
Subjective  thinking  and  an  objective  experience  differ  not  in 
this,  that  the  sense-cognitions  are  not  connected  through 
the  understanding-cognitions,  for  this  is  conditional  for  any 
connecting  in  discursive  judgments  whatever  ;  but  they  dif- 
fer in  this,  that  in  subjective  thinking  the  intellectual  opera- 
tion of  connection  creates  its  own  judgments  within  the 
self,  and  only  for  the  self  who  thinks  them,  while  in  objec- 
tive experience  the  whole  process  and  its  result  in  a  judg- 
ment is  conditioned  by  somewhat  already  existing  other 
than  the  self,  and  the  determination  of  this  other  existence 
in  the  judgment  makes  it  to  be  objective  to  the  self,  and 
competent  in  the  same  way  to  be  object  to  any  other  self 
possible.  One  gives  wholly  an  ideal,  the  other  an  actual 
thing  in  the  judgment.  And,  here  the  task  which  we  are  to 
accomplish  lies  directly  before  us,  viz.,  that  we  attain  the 
operation  of  connection  itself  in  its  primitive  elements  so 
completely,  that  we  may  determine  how,  and  how  only,  an 
objective  experience  is  possible.  In  this  will  be  attained 
the  entire  functions  of  an  understanding  in  its  possibility, 
and  will  thus  be  the  understanding  in  its  Idea  after  which 
we  are  seeking. 

Sufficient  has  already  been  said  to  show  that  no  deter- 
mination of  connection  can  be  reached  through  an  intuitive 
process.  The  judgment  is  inclusive  of  somewhat  not  admit- 
ting of  construction,  and  thus  not  possible  to  be  brought 
under  an  immediate  beholding.  Conjunction  is  restri«5ted  to 
the  field  of  the  sense,  and  can  by  no  means  project  itself 
within  the  field  of  the  understanding,  and  thus  it  is  utterly 
It? practicable   that   an   intuitive    passage   should    ever  be 

10* 


V.y^         THE    UNDERSTANDING    11*     ITS    IDEA. 

opened  between  them.  Connection  is  wholly  another  work 
than  conjunction,  and  intuitive  affirmations  wholly  other 
cognitions  than  discursive  judgments.  No  exposition  nor 
use  of  the  former  can  be  of  any  significancy  in  determining 
the  latter.  The  sense  can  not  think  nor  give  any  exposition 
of  the  process  of  thinking.  Conjunction  which  is  for  the 
sense,  simply  brings  into  collocation  /  connection,  which  is 
for  thought  in  the  understanding,  requires  an  intrinsic  coa- 
lition. One  is  function  for  cognizing  juxtaposition,  the 
other  for  cognizing  an  inherent  concretion. 

Since,  therefore,  all  attempt  of  an  a  priori  exposition  by 
an  intuitive  process  is  wholly  excluded,  the  alternative  must 
be  to  take  some  media,  if  such  may  be  found,  by  which  it 
may  discursively  be  determined  how  such  objective  connec- 
tion may  be  ;  or  which  is  the  same  thing,  how  an  objective 
experience  is  possible.  Such  media  must  be  common  to 
both  our  subjective  constructions  of  phenomena  in  the  sense 
and  our  objective  connection  of  them  in  an  experience,  or 
they  can  afford  no  occasion  for  a  discursus  from  one  to  the 
other  and  consequently  no  determination  of  any  connection 
having  been  effected  between  them.  Tliey  must,  moreover, 
be  a  priori  conditional  for  both  subjective  construction  and 
objective  connection  in  an  experience,  inasmuch  as  our  de- 
termination of  such  connection  in  experience  is  to  be  wholly 
a  priori^  and  thus  necessarily  conditional  for  all  objective 
connection.  Only  in  such  manner  can  any  connection  in  an 
objective  experience  be  possible.  And  now,  such  media 
may  be  found  in  Space  and  Time.  We  have  already  seen 
that  all  definite  phenomena  must  have  their  definite  place 
and  their  definite  period,  and  thus  that  all  construction  of 
phenomena  must  be  in  a  space  and  a  time ;  all  subjective 


A    NOTIONAL   NECESSARY  TO    EXPERIENCE.    227 

constructions  thus  must  have  a  space  and  a  time.  On  the 
other  hand,  all  objective  things  and  events,  as  connection  of 
phenomena  in  an  experience,  must  be  in  space  and  time ;  and 
thus  all  objective  connection  of  phenomena  must  have  a 
space  and  a  time.  Space  and  time  are  thus  common  to  both 
a  construction  of  phenomena  in  the  sense,  and  a  connection 
of  phenomena  into  things  and  events  as  experience  in  the 
understanding.  Space  and  time  are  also  a  priori,  that  is, 
they  are  necessary  and  universal  conditions  for  both  con- 
struction of  phenomena  and  connection  of  things,  and  may 
thus  be  used  in  an  a  priori  investigation.  And  now,  the 
design  is  to  show,  in  the  use  of  space  and  time,  how  it  may 
be  determined  that  constructed  phenomena  may  be  con- 
nected into  things  and  events  in  an  order  of  objecti\'e  expe- 
rience, and  how  only  this  may  be  done,  and  which  will  bo 
the  Understandins:  in  its  Idea. 


SECTION    III. 

SPACE    AND   TIME   EXCLUDE   ALL   DETERMINED    EXPERIENCE 
EXCEPT   THROUGH   THE    CONNECTIONS    OF    A   NOTIONAL. 

Experience  is  a  determination  of  the  apprehended  phe- 
nomena to  their  particular  places  in  one  whole  of  space,  and 
Iheir  particular  periods  in  one  whole  of  time.  Except  as 
the  phenomena  are  apprehended  there  can  be  no  experience, 
since  nothing  appears  in  the  consciousness  ;  and  when  phe- 
nomena are  apprehended,  except  they  be  determined  to  their 
places  in  the  one  space  and  their  periods  in  the  one  time, 


228      THK    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

there  can  be  no  experience,  for  there  is  nothing  connected, 
but  a  rhapsody  of  coming  and  going  appearances  with  no 
order  or  significancy.  And  now  the  cognitions  of  space 
and  time  enable  us  to  determine,  a  2^riori,  that  no  connected 
experience  in  space  and  time  can  be  except  as  the  phenom- 
enal are  connected  through  a  notional  in  the  understanding. 
1.  The  plienomena  only  'may  he  given^  and  we  may  at- 
tempt to  construct  their  places  m  space  and  their  periods  in 
time  by  than. — We  will  show  the  necessary  order  of  such  a 
process,  and  that  it  can  not  result  in  any  determined  experi- 
ence. When  a  content  is  given  in  the  sensibility  and  this  is 
conjoined  into  definite  figure  and  period,  there  will  then  be 
cognized  a  phenomenon  occupying  a  place  and  period.  This 
first  content  may  pass  from  the  sensibility  and  other  content 
be  given  in  it,  and  this  in  turn  may  be  conjoined  into  defi- 
nite figure  and  period,  and  known  as  phenomenon  having 
place  and  period.  Such  repeated  constructions  may  go  on 
indefinitely,  and  so  long  as  the  construction  which  termin- 
ates the  former  shall  conjoin  itself  to  the  construction  which 
begins  the  latter,  there  will  be  a  continuation  of  place  and 
period,  and  the  particular  place  and  period  of  the  one  may 
be  determined  relatively  to  the  place  and  period  of  the 
other.  Thus,  I  may  construct  a  rod  to  the  extent  of  a  yard, 
and  then,  as  that  content  passes,  I  may  continue  to  construct 
a  rope  of  five  yards  in  length,  and  perhaps  still  right  on  may 
construct  a  chain  ten  yards  long,  and  then  I  can  very  well 
determine  that  the  rod,  the  rope,  and  the  chain  together  arc 
of  such  a  length,  and  what  the  place  of  each  is  relatively  to 
the  others ;  and  so  with  the  period.  In  the  conjoining  move- 
ment which  constructed  the  rod  there  may  have  been  one 
raonaent,  and  that  of  the  rope  five  moments,  and  that  of  the 


NOTIONAL    NECESSARY    TO    EXPERIENCE.    229 

chain  ten  moments,  and  then  I  can  readily  determine  the 
period  of  the  whole,  and  the  relative  periods  and  succes- 
sions of  each  with  the  others.  Thus  may  it  be  with  any 
number  of  constructions  contiguous  in  place  and  continuous 
in  period. 

But  I  can  not  in  this  at  all  determine  what  their  places 
and  periods  are  in  the  one  space  and  the  one  time,  and  thus 
attain  to  any  ordered  experience.  They  are  contiguous  and 
continuous,  but  in  what  direction  in  the  one  space  and  what 
succession  in  the  one  time,  I  can  by  no  possible  extent  or 
number  of  constructions  determine  any  thing  at  all.  If  my 
constructing  agency  had  terminated  with  the  rod,  and  a 
chasm  had  intervened  with  no  content  and  no  construction  and 
thus  nothing  in  the  consciousness,  when  I  again  awoke  in 
the  self-conscious  agency  of  constructing  the  rope,  and  then 
again  a  chasm  and  a  conscious  constructing  of  the  chain,  I 
could  by  no  conjunctions  of  the  sense  pass  over  these  chasms 
and  determine  direction  and  distance  of  places  or  succession 
and  duration  of  period  between  the  phenomena.  When  the 
conjoining  agency  ceases,  then  conscious  extension  and  dur- 
ation ceases,  and  all  places  and  periods  must  stand  isolated 
in  themselves  and  have  no  determined  relationship  to  each 
other  nor  to  the  one  space  and  the  one-time.  Experience 
can  not  so  be  constituted.  And  not  only  in  the  one  space 
and  one  time  for  the  self  whose  agency  constructs,  but  more 
especially  in  reference  to  a  common  experience  among  many 
selves,  all  constructions  of  phenomena  must  be  helpless. 
The  uninterrupted  constructions  may  give  determined  places 
and  periods  to  phenomena  relatively  to  each  other  for  the 
subject  constructing,  but  only  for  him  and  for  no  other  in 
common  with  him.     Even  while  his  constructions  are  m  ono 


230       THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

place  and  one  period  in  the  continuity  of  the  parts,  this  is 
only  for  him  and  for  no  one  in  communion  with  him.  So 
Ids  phenomena  have  been,  and  in  his  construction  of  them 
so  his  places  and  periods  have  been,  but  what  phenomena, 
places,  and  peiiods  other  constructing  agencies  may  have  had 
in  consciousness,  he  can  by  no  conjunctions  of  the  sense  de- 
termine. His  phenomena  in  places  and  periods  relatively  to 
each  other  have  been  for  him,  and  others'  phenomena  in 
their  places  and  periods  relatively  to  each  other  have  been 
distinctively  for  them,  and  neither  can  say  any  thing  what 
one  has  been  relatively  to  the  others,  nor  what  all  have  been 
relatively  to  one  whole  of  space  and  one  whole  of  time.  A 
universal  order  of  experience  can  never  thus  arise.  So  all 
philosophy  that  builds  up  itself  on  that  which  is  furnished 
by  sense,  and  stands  only  in  the  consciousness,  must  neces- 
sarily proceed.  It  can  give  a  relative  experience  so  far  as 
perpetuated  perception  goes,  but  it  can  attain  to  no  deter- 
mination of  phenomena  in  their  places  and  periods  in  any 
one  whole  of  space  and  of  time  for  itself,  and  much  less  in 
any  one  space  and  one  time  in  common  for  all. 

2.  The  one  space  and  one  time  may  he  assum,ed,  and  the 
attempt  made  to  connect  the  phenom^ena  and  determine  their 
places  and  periods  hy  them. — The  process  for  such  an  at- 
tempted determination  of  experience  has  its  one  necessary 
order,  and  we  may  a  pyriori  see  that  this  also  must  fail  in 
all  connection  of  phenomena. 

The  cognition  of  space  and  time  as  a  priori  given  in  the 
sense,  and  which  we  have  termed  the  primitive  i?ituifio?i,  is 
that  of  a  diversity  of  points  and  instants  wholly  unconnected 
ftnd  unlimited.  It  is  that  which  is  possible  to  become  con- 
joined and  constructed  in  limits,  but  as  without  oonj unction 


HOTIONAL    NECESSARY    TO    EXPERIENCE.    231 

can  be  known  only  as  pure  diversity  of  points  and  instants. 
When  conjoined  by  an  intellectual  operation  the  primitive 
intuition  of  space  becomes  pure  figure,  and  that  of  time 
becomes  pure  period.  In  the  sense,  therefore,  space  and 
time  can  give  no  relationship  to  phenomena,  for  they  become 
figure  and  period  only  by  the  construction  which  gives  place 
and  duration  to  the  phenomena.  The  phenomena,  we  have 
just  seen,  can  not  determine  their  places  and  periods  in  one 
space  and  one  time,  for  they  are  distinct  and  isolate  among 
themselves  ;  and  so  the  primitive  intuition  of  space  and  time 
can  not  determine  the  places  and  periods  of  phenomena,  for 
there  is  nothing  but  the  pure  diversity  without  and  beyond 
the  phenomena. 

Tint  because  in  the  understanding,  through  a  process  we 
are  now  forthwith  in  the  next  section  to  examine,  the  cogni- 
tions of  space  and  time  become  that  of  concrete  and  con- 
nected wholes,  it  may  be  supposed  that  the  separate  and 
fleeting  phenomena,  in  their  distinct  places  and  periods, 
may  be  so  connected  in  the  concrete  one  space  and  one 
time  as  to  determine  an  experience  thereby.  It  is  thus 
space  and  time  as  given  in  the  understanding,  a  concrete 
one  sjmce  and  one  time,  and  not  space  and  time  as  given  iii 
the  sense,  a  pure  diversity  of  points  and  instants,  that  we 
here  cognize  as  the  attempted  medium  for  determining  an 
experience. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  think  space  and  time  in  their  total- 
ity, and  to  expound  the  process  of  the  understanding  in  so 
doing.  This  we  will  first  attend  to  and  then  show  its  utter 
incom])etency  for  determining  an  experience  in  space  and 
time.  The  cognition  of  Space  as  a  total  of  all  spaces  is  at- 
taiiKjd  by  a  pi-ocess  of  pure  thought  in  the  understanding ; 


232 


THE     UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 


not  at  all  by  a  conjunction  of  places  as  in  juxtaposition  in 
the  sense.  A  notional  connective  is  assumed  as  everywhere 
pervading  all  places,  and  in  this  thought  of  an  all-pervading 
connective,  all  possible  places  are  brought  into  a  coalition 
and  made  to  belong  to  one  concrete  immensity  of  all  space. 
Not  a  conjoining  act,  which  takes  spaces  as  in  the  diverse 
and  constructs  them  into  a  total  space,  but  an  all-pervading 
connective  is  thought  as  already  in  space,  holding  it  in  one 
universal  immensity  in  itself  as  conditional  that  any  place 
may  be  taken  as  within  space.  There  can,  thus,  be  no 
chasm  as  a  void  of  space  around  any  definite  place,  as  must 
ever  be  with  all  constructions  in  the  sense ;  but  this  all- 
pervading  connective  of  spaces  is  a  universal  plenum  to 
space,  and  therefore  all  places  are  held  by  it  as  in  the  one 
whole  of  space,  and  readily  determinable  in  direction  and 
distance  each  from  any  other  in  the  one  whole.  There  can 
be  no  separation  of  spaces,  inasmuch  as  the  all-pervading 
connective  ever  holds  space  in  one  whole,  and  while  divi- 
sions may  appear  in  space,  separations  can  not  be  made  of 
space.  The  understanding-conception  of  space  is  not  thus 
an  aggregate  of  spaces  in  juxtaposition,  but  one  concrete 
whole  in  its  all-pervading  connective,  inseparable  and  im- 
movable both  as  a  whole  or  in  any  interchange  of  its  parts. 
Such  notional  connective  into  one  immensity  of  all  space 
gives  to  its  conception  in  the  understanding  but  one  possir 
ble  mode,  viz.,  that  of  absolute  permanence.  Every  place 
in  space  has  its  own  permanent  position,  in  reference  to  the 
one  immensity  of  space  and  to  all  other  places. 

The  understanding-cognition  of  Time,  also,  as  a  total  of 
all  periods,  is  attained  in  pure  thought  thus.  A  notional 
connective  as  ever-abiding  is  assumed  to  hold  through  aU 


XOTrONAL    NECESSARY    TO    EXPERIENCE.  233 

periods,  and  thereby  making  all  possible  periods  adhere  to- 
gether in  the  one  eternity  of  duration.  This,  again,  is  no 
construction  of  a  whole  time  out  of  diverse  times  conjoined 
in  unity  by  bringing  them  in  collocation,  as  in  the  sense ; 
but  the  perduring  connective  of  all  periods  already  first 
holds  all  times  in  one  Time,  in  order  that  any  period  may 
afterwards  be  taken  as  in  the  one  whole  of  all  time.  There 
can,  thus,  be  no  chasms  in  time  as  if  there  were  intervals  in 
which  is  no  time,  thereby  isolating  definite  periods  in  their 
own  times,  as  in  the  sense ;  but  this  all-abiding  connective 
makes  one  eternity  of  time,  and  all  possible  periods  to  be  in 
it,  and  each  inseparable  from  it,  and  determinable  in  succes- 
sion relatively  to  any  other  period.  Time,  thus,  can  not 
be  sundered,  but  only  things  in  time  can  be  sundered  in 
their  different  periods.  Time  in  the  understanding  is  not 
the  conception  of  single,  separate,  and  fleeting  periods ;  but 
an  ever-abiding,  all-embracing  duration. 

The  conception  of  time  as  one  whole,  is  not  like  space 
restricted  to  one  mode  as  permanence,  but  has  three  modesy 
which,  as  given  in  pure  thought,  it  is  here  important  should 
be  clearly  apprehended.  When  we  take  the  conception  of 
time  in  its  ever-abiding  connective,  holding  all  periods 
within  itself  as  the  same  perduring  whole  of  all  time,  we 
have  one  mode  of  time  which  may  be  distinguished  as  the 
perpetuity  of  time.  When,  again,  we  have  the  conception 
of  this  all-abiding  connective  holding  all  possible  periods 
within  itself  as  a  series,  such  that  no  one  can  be  reached 
except  in  the  coming  and  departing  of  all  periods  wiiich  pre- 
cede it,  we  have  another  mode  of  time  which  may  be  dis- 
tinguished as  the  succession  of  time.  And,  lastly,  when  ^q 
have  the  combined  conceptions  of  the  perpetuity  and  sue- 


234        THE     UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

cession  of  time,  such  that  in  the  perpetual,  no  period  of  the 
successive  can  be  coetaneous  with  any  other  period,  but  that 
eacli  stands  for  itself  only  in  the  same  point  of  all  time,  and 
can  thus  only  be  in  the  same  time  with  itself  and  not  in  the 
time  of  any  other  period,  we  have  a  third  mode  of  time 
wliich  we  may  designate  the  simultaneousness  of  time. 
These  three,  the  perpetual,  successive,  and  simultaneous,  are 
all  the  possible  modes  of  time,  and  are  quite  distinct  each 
from  each.  The  perpetuity  of  time,  is  the  mode  of  perdur 
ing  in  all  periods ;  the  succession  of  time,  is  the  mode  of  a 
progressus  through  all  periods ;  and  the  simultaneousness  of 
time,  is  the  mode  of  a  standing  in  its  own  position  for  every 
period.  While  in  a  sense-conception  we  should  say  as  fleet- 
ing as  time,  in  the  understanding-conception  of  the  first 
mode  we  say  as  lasting  as  time ;  while,  again,  in  the  sense, 
we  have  the  alteration  of  time,  in  the  understanding  as 
second  mode  we  have  the  continuance  of  time ;  and,  finally, 
while  in  the  sense  we  have  the  indeterminateness  of  time 
in  the  understanding  as  the  third  mode  we  have  the  exact- 
ness of  time. 

And  now,  with  this  attainment  in  the  understanding  of 
space  and  time  in  their  universality,  so  that  all  places  may  be 
thought  as  in  one  time,  and  thus  all  places  be  determinable 
in  direction  and  distance  each  from  each  in  the  one  space, 
and  all  periods  determinable  in  their  succession  and  duration 
relatively  to  each  other  in  the  one  time,  it  may  be  supposed 
that  thus  the  phenomena  given  in  sense  can  be  determined 
to  their  places  in  space  and  their  periods  in  time.  And  so 
they  might  be,  if  they  were  but  ideal  conceptions  as  in  our 
thought  of  the  modes  of  space  and  time.  When  I  con- 
ceived of  a  rod,  a  chain,  a  rope,  etc.,  as  before    I  should  put 


KOTIONAL    NECESSARY    TO    E  X  P  E  R  I  E  X  C  E  .  235 

these  conceived  phenomena  in  some  place  of  my  understand- 
mg  conception  of  all  space  as  a  whole,  and  thus  in  thought 
their  direction  and  distance  could  be  readily  determined  in 
the  whole  of  all  space.  And  so  also  in  time,  I  should  put 
the  conception  of  their  appearing  in  some  period  of  my  un- 
derstanding-conception of  all  time  as  a  whole,  and  thus 
their  ideal  period  could  be  readily  determinable  from  all 
other  periods  in  my  thought  of  a  whole  of  all  time,  as 
whether  before  or  after,  and  how  much  in  each  case.  But, 
this  would  leave  the  whole  to  be  subjective  merely.  It  is 
my  thought  of  space  and  of  time  as  a  whole,  and  my  con- 
ception of  the  phenomena  to  be  put  in  space  and  time,  and 
their  places  and  periods  to  be  determined ;  and  their  deter- 
mination is  only  ideal  and  subjective,  for  myself  and  with  no 
possible  significancy  for  any  other  self  In  this  way  no  ob" 
jective  experience  can  possibly  be  given,  determined  in 
space  and  time. 

And,  further,  should  it  be  assumed  that  each  self  has,  as 
understanding-cognition,  the  same  space  and  time  each  as  a 
whole  ;  and  that  it  is  a  law  of  thought  that  an  understand- 
ing working  any  where  should  attain  to  just  such  modes  of 
space  and  time ; — which  must  be  mere  assumption  that 
every  man's  space  and  time  is  precisely  every  other  man's 
space  and  time — yet  could  not  the  real  phenomena,  which 
each  man  should  perceive,  be  determined  to  their  places  and 
periods  in  an  objective  experience.  The  same  space  and 
time  would  then  be  for  each  man,  but  his  perceptions  of 
phenomena  would  diifer,  and  appear  in  different  places  and 
different  periods,  and  each  would  have  his  own  world  for 
himself,  with  no  community  of  common  phenomena  in  the 
same  place  and  in  the  same  period  as  others.     The  appear 


236        THE     UNDERSTANDING   IN   ITS   IDEA. 

ing  of  the  phenomena  would  determine  all  the  connections 
in  space  and  time,  and  this  would  differ  as  the  perceptions 
came  and  went  with  every  individual.  The  permanent 
mode  of  the  one  space,  for  all,  could  not  determine  the  con- 
nections of  the  phenomena  appearing  in  it,  for  all ;  inasmuch 
as  while  the  phenomena  were  perceived,  the  space  could  not 
be  perceived,  but  could  only  be  thought.  And  so  with  the 
three  modes  of  time,  which  it  may  here  be  conceded  all 
might  have  alike,  they  could  not  determine  the  connections 
of  the  phenomena  appearing  in  time  to  be  perduring,  suc- 
cessive, or  contemporaneous ;  for  while  the  phenomena  were 
perceived,  the  modes  of  time  could  only  be  thought,  and 
can  not  be  made  to  have  phenomenal  appearance.  I  can  de- 
termine the  place  of  one  phenomenon  arising  in  a  lake  and 
then  sinking,  compared  with  another  phenomenon  after, 
wards  arising  and  sinking,  and  can  tell  their  bearing  and 
distance ;  but  this  is  because  the  lake  is  itself  perceived, 
and  connects  and  determines  the  places  of  the  appearance ; 
but  such  is  not  space  and  time  as  a  whole ;  they  are  thought 
not  perceived. 

While,  then,  it  might  be  admitted  that  the  understand- 
ing in  pure  thought  could  attain  to  the  modes  of  space  and 
time  as  each  a  whole,  yet  could  not  this  possibly  avail  to 
connect  the  phenomena  appearing  in  space  and  time  and  de- 
termine their  places  and  periods  in  an  objective  experience. 
If  all  might  have,  from  some  inner  law  of  thought,  the  same 
modes  of  space  and  time,  this  could  not  give  to  them  a  com- 
mon experience  in  perception ;  for  their  ideal  subjective 
space  and  time,  though  admitted  to  be  the  same  in  all,  yet 
can  be  perceived  by  none,  and  only  thought,  and  can  not 
thus  be  any  media  for  connecting  and  determining  in  theif 


NOTIONAL    NECESSAKT    TO    E  X  P  E  III  E  N  O  E  .  237 

places  and  periods,  the  phenomena  which  may  be  perceived 
by  each.  It  is  not  necessary  therefore  to  expose  the  as- 
sumption of  a  universal  law  of  thought  that  would  give  to 
every  understanding  the  same  space  and  time  from  each 
one's  own  pure  thinking,  which  resolves  all  into  an  arbitrary 
constitution  of  an  understanding,  and  knows  no  reason  for 
such  a  law  rather  than  any  other,  and  which  involves  the 
teacher  of  the  doctrine  in  dogmatism  and  his  discij)les  in 
credulity ;  but  we  may  pass  it  all  by,  since  when  admitted, 
it  would  be  yet  utterly  in  vain  for  all  objective  experience. 

3.  There  remains  only  this  other  supposition  possible, 
thcit  perhaps  a  notional  connective  for  the  phenomena  may 
determine  these  phenomeyia  in  their  places  and  periods  i?i 
the  whole  of  all  si^ace  and  of  all  time,  and  so  may  give  both 
the  phenomena  and  their  s^^ace  and  time  in  an  objective  ex- 
perience. By  using  the  conception  of  space  and  time  as 
the  media  for  ascertaining  how  an  experience  in  space  and 
time  may  be  possible,  we  have  now  already  excluded  the 
two  methods  of  Sensualism  and  Idealism,  and  found  that 
neither  the  perception  of  phenomena,  nor  the  thought  of  a 
whole  of  space  and  of  time,  can  by  any  possibility  give  an 
experience  determined  in  its  connections  in  space  and  time. 
We  are  thus  shut  up  to  the  one  remaining  process  of  con- 
ceiving a  notional  connective  for  the  phenomena,  which  shall 
condition  them  in  their  appearance  and  thereby  in  their 
places  and  periods,  and  thus  determine  their  connections  in 
space  and  time  objectively.  When  we  have  found  that 
neither  the  phenomenal  nor  the  assumed  one  space  and  one 
time  can  connect  our  perceptions  into  an  ordered  experience, 
there  is  nothing  left  but  a  resort  to  the  notional  in  the  Un- 
derstanding.    It  is  much  to  have  here  found  the  only  possi- 


238       THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS     IDEA. 

ble  medium  of  any  determined  passage  from  the  sense  to  the 
understanding,  and  to  know  that  if  made  at  all,  it  must  be 
at  this  point  and  in  this  manner.  Perceptions  as  phenome- 
nal can  be  brought  into  philosophical  synthetic  judgments, 
and  thus  into  an  order  of  experience,  only  through  the  no- 
tional. 

We  will,  in  the  next  section,  give  the  method  of  demon- 
strating a  priori  such  a  possible  connection,  and  thus  a  pos- 
sible experience  determined  in  space  and  time ;  and  in  this 
will  be  exposed  all  the  primitive  Elements  which  enter  into 
the  operation  of  connection,  and  which  give  the  functions 
of  an  understanding  in  its  idea. 


SECTION    IV. 

THE  PRIMITIVE  ELEMENTS  OF  THE  OPERATION  OP  CONNEC- 
TION, GIVING  A  POSSIBLE  EXPERIENCE  DETERMINED  IN 
SPACE    AND   TIME. 

But  one  possible  method  of  connection  noAV  lies  open. 
The  phenomena  must  themselves  be  so  connected  in  their 
grounds  and  sources  of  being,  that  every  perception  of  them 
shall  be  conditioned  by  this  notional  ground  to  its  place  in 
space  for  each,  and  by  this  notional  source  to  its  period  in 
lime  for  each.  It  is  now  the  design  to  show  how,  in  this 
way,  an  experience  determined  in  its  connections  in  space 
and  time  is  possible ;  and  in  the  process  we  shall  attain  the 
complete  operation  of  Connection  in  all  its  primitive  Ele- 
ments. 


P2IMITIVE    ELEMENTS     OF    CONNECTION.    239 

Firsts  we  will  attain  to  a  possible  determination  of 
experience  in  Space. 

Let  there  be  the  conception  of  a  force  in  a  place,  which 
maintains  its  equilibrium  about  a  central  point  and  com- 
pletely fills  a  definite  space,  and  which  forbids  all  intrusion 
within  its  place  except  in  its  own  expulsion  from  it,  and  we 
will  here  call  that  conception  of  force  the  space-filling  force. 
Its  equilibrium  every  way  upon  its  own  center  secures  that 
it  must  remain  steadfast  in  its  own  place,  unless  disturbed 
by  some  interfering  force  ah  extra^  and  thus  constancy  and 
impenetrability  are  the  necessary  a  priori  modes  of  its  being. 
This  space-filling  force  is  altogether  a  notion,  and  impossible 
that  it  should  be  other  than  an  understanding-cognition,  and 
yet  it  is  manifest  that  it  may  be  an  occasion  for  phenomena 
as  appearing  in  consciousness.  To  the  sensibility  in  an 
organ  of  touch  it  opposes  a  resistance  to  muscular  pressure, 
and  may  thus  furnish  the  content  in  sensation  for  compara- 
tive hardness  or  softness,  smoothness  or  roughness,  and  for 
figure  and  motion  as  yielding  to  pressure.  It  may  also  give 
content  to  the  sensibility  in  any  other  possible  organization 
when  the  requisite  conditions  are  supplied ;  as  through  the 
light,  colors  ;  and  through  the  air,  sounds ;  and  through  an 
eflluvia  of  its  own,  smells  ;  and  through  a  dissolving  sapid- 
ity, tastes.  It  can  not  itself  become  appearance  but  thought 
only,  and  yet  it  may  manifest  itself  through  a  sensibility  in 
all  possible  quality,  and  while  its  mode  of  being  in  the  un- 
derstanding is  that  of  a  force  constant  and  impenetrable,  its 
mode  of  being  in  the  sense  is  that  of  its  perceived  quality  in 
the  manifold  phenomena  it  occasions.  The  occasion  for  its' 
owTi  manifested  mode  of  being  in  the  sense  is  determined  in 
its  mode  as  given  in  the  understanding,  and  this,  when  tho 


240        THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

conditions  are  supplied,  to  any  sensibility  that  may  bring  its 
content  within  any  self-consciousness.  It  thus  determines 
its  own  content  in  all  sensibility,  as  conditioning  the  con- 
structing agency,  and  secures  its  phenomena  to  be  objective 
in  each,  and  itself  as  ground,  the  same  object  to  all.  The 
place  in  which  the  conjoining  agency  must  construct  the 
figure  of  its  phenomena  in  the  vision  or  the  touch,  is  the 
same  in  the  same  self-consciousness  at  every  repetition  of 
the  construction,  inasmuch  as  the  space-filling  force  is  con- 
str^nt  in  its  place  and  constant  as  occasion  for  phenomenal 
;;ontent  in  the  sensibility ;  and  for  the  same  reasons,  the 
place  must  be  the  same  to  all  possible  self-consciousness 
within  wnich  the  figure  of  the  phenomena  shall  be  con- 
structed. Whether,  then,  the  content,  be  constantly  in  the 
sensibility  or  not — i.  e.,  whether  the  eye  be  constantly  in  the 
direction  of  the  object  or  not,  or  whether  the  touch  be  con- 
stantly upon  it  or  not — the  constant  space-filling  force  deter- 
mines the  constructed  phenomena  to  be  in  the  same  place 
at  every  appearance,  and  for  every  percipient. 

Not,  then,  as  in  the  sense  only,  in  which  every  phenom- 
enon must  come  and  depart  in  its  own  appearance  and  dis- 
appearance and  its  own  definite  figure  in  place  come  and 
depart  with  it,  and  thus  the  places  be  as  isolate  as  the  phe- 
nomena, with  no  possibility  of  determining  them  in  one 
whole  of  all  space ;  but,  with  the  coming  and  departing  phe- 
nomena in  the  sense,  we  have  here  the  space-filling  force 
which  occasions  them  conceived  to  be  constant  in  the  same 
place,  and  thereby  determining  the  appearance  to  be  in  the 
same  place,  and  this  same  place  fixed  in  its  one  position  in 
the  one  immensity  of  universal  space.  And,  now,  it  matters 
not  how  many  such  space-filling  forces  be  conceited  as  each 


PRIMITIVE    ELEMENTS     OF     CONNECTION.    241 

in  its  own  plnce,  and  giving  occasion  each  to  its  own  phe- 
nomenal quaUty  in  the  sense ;  since  all  will  be  in  a  deter- 
minate relationship  each  to  each  in  direction  and  distance  in 
the  one  space  which  contains  them  all,  and  this  also  for  all 
who  shall  perceive  their  phenomena.  This  determination  of 
the  relative  bearing  and  distance  of  different  objects  in  space 
from  each  other  still,  however,  is  conditioned  on  the  same 
conception  of  the  space-filling  force  being  there  present.  If 
there  be  conceived  any  place  in  which  there  is  no  space-fill- 
ing force,  then  in  that  place  there  is  nothing  which  may  oc- 
casion phenomenal  content,  and  as  nothing  can  there  be 
perceived,  so  it  is  manifest  that  nothing  of  place  can  be  de- 
termined. Snch  a  chasm  of  all  space-filling  being  would 
necessitate  an  utter  void  of  all  experience,  and  it  could  never 
be  determined  how  broad  such  chasm  is  ;  in  what  direction 
from  each  other  the  phenomena  on  each  side  of  it  were ;  nor 
where  in  the  one  universal  space  such  chasm,  as  a  void  of 
all  being,  was  situated.  A  chasm  of  all  being  in  void  space, 
of  a  cubic  yard,  would  as  effectually  cut  off  all  experience  on 
one  side  from  all  determinate  relationship  to  any  experience 
that  might  be  on  the  other  side,  as  Tvould  a  void  which 
might  receive  a  thousand  suns  and  their  several  rolling  sys- 
tems. Whether  there  may  be  such  voids  of  all  being  in 
space  or  not,  or  whether  all  of  being  may  be  circumsphered 
by  such  a  void  space,  is  not  at  all  affirmed  or  denied,  here, 
but  only  this,  that  a  determined  experience  in  space  can  be 
possible  so  far  forth  only  as  a  space  is  occupied  by  a  space- 
filling force,  giving  occasion  in  its  owm  constancy  of  being 
for  constant  phenomena  to  appear  in  the  consciousness. 
Th-e  conception  of  a  removal  into  a  void  space  beyond  all 
occasions  for  perceiving  a  phenomenal  universe,  would  pre- 

11 


242        THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

elude  all  possibility  for  determining  the  place  in  the  irnraen- 
sity  of  space  which  that  universe  occupies.  Only  as  spjice 
is  filled  with  that  which,  as  understanding-cognition,  is  com- 
petent to  furnish  constant  occasion  for  that  which,  as  sense- 
cognition,  may  constantly  appear,  is  it  possible  that  any 
determination  of  space  should  be  given  in  experience.  Com- 
munication from  one  phenomenon  to  another,  and  thus  from 
one  determined  place  to  another,  can  only  be  thought  as 
possible  where  a  plenum  of  being  in  space  gives  occasion 
for  a  continuous  appearance  from  place  to  place. 

In  this  manner,  and  in  this  only,  is  it  possible  that  expe- 
rience should  be  determined  in  space.  A  ground  must  be 
given  in  the  space-filling  notional  for  the  construction  of  the 
continued  phenomenal,  and  the  si^ace-filling  ground  will  de- 
termine all  its  phenomena  constructed  in  their  definite  places 
to  be  in  the  same  place,  and  this,  occasioning  continued 
appearance,  will  determine  its  j^lace  in  one  universal  space. 

But,  it  is  now  manifest  that  this  space-filling  force  is  the 
constant  subsistence  in  which  the  phenomenal  qualities  in- 
here. The  connection  is  that  of  subsistence  and  inherence. 
But  this  subsisting  notional,  which  in  the  understanding  is 
constant,  is  the  same  conception  as  that  of  Substaiice  ;  and 
the  inhering  phenomenal,  which,  though  having  occasion  for 
a  continual  appearing,  may  yet  come  and  go  in  the  sense,  and 
may  therefore  be  quality  as  accidentally  inhering,  is  the  con- 
ception of  Accidence  ;  and  thus  we  have  the  a  priori  con- 
dition, that  the  determination  of  an  experience  in  space  rests 
upon  the  connection  of  subsistence  and  inherence,  and  which 
necessitates  the  being  of  Substance  and  Accidence.  The 
first  primitive  Element  in  an  operation  of  Connection  is, 
therefore,  that  of  Substance  and  Accidence. 


PRIMITIVE    ELEMENTS     OF     CONNECTION.    243 

We  will  next  examine  how  au  experience  determined  in 
Twie  is  possible. 

All  consciousness  of  time  depends  upon  tlie  modifica- 
tions of  the  internal  state.  Except  as  changes  occur  in  the 
inner  sense,  it  must  be  impossible  to  apprehend  that  a  time 
is  passing.  This  capability  of  the  inner  sense  to  be  modi- 
fied lies  already  as  primitive  Intuition  in  the  self,  and  the 
capacity  of  the  intellectual  agency  to  move  over  the  inner 
sense  and  thus  modify  the  internal  state,  makes  it  possible 
that  a  subjective  time  should  be  brought  within  conscious- 
ness and  constructed  into  definite  periods.  Thus,  I  may 
conjoin  the  primitive  diversity  in  space  in  unity  and  thereby 
construct  a  definite  figure  in  space,  as  a  mathematical  line. 
The  movement  of  my  intellectual  agency  in  such  construc- 
tion would  change  the  inner  state,  in  the  passing  of  the  in- 
tellectual agency  through  the  diverse  points  in  the  primitive 
intuition  of  space,  and  thereby  give  in  the  consciousness  the 
apprehension  that  a  time  was  passing.  This,  it  is  manifest, 
must  be  wholly  subjective,  and  the  consciousness  for  myself 
only  that  a  time  was  passing,  inasmuch  as  it  would  be  only 
7)17/  affection  of  inner  state  and  by  7711/  intellectual  action. 
Both  the  definite  line  as  figure  in  space,  and  the  definite 
peril  d  in  time  in  which  the  constructing  agency  was  passing, 
would  be  of  no  significancy  except  in  7n(/  self-consciousness. 
Every  point  in  the  diversity  of  space  through  which  the 
conjoining  agency  passed  may  be  conceived  as  that  which 
the  moving  agency  successively  occupied,  and  as  thus  stand- 
ing in  it,  each  point  may  be  called  an  instant  of  time ;  and 
each  interval  from  point  to  point  may  be  conceived  as  that 
through  which  the  intellectual  agency  in  the  construction  of 
the  line  moved,  and  which  may  thus  be  called  a  moment  of 


244       THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

time ;  the  divei-sity  in  the  prhnitive  intuition  of  time  may 
thus  be  considered  as  instants  or  moments,  according  to  a 
conception  of  the  points  in  the  inner  state  to  be  affected  or 
a  conception  of  the  moving  agency  from  one  point  to  an- 
other. As  the  agency  stands  in  the  point  it  is  an  instant, 
as  it  moves  from  the  point  it  is  a  moment ;  and  as  each  mo- 
ment is  a  new  modification  of  the  internal  state,  there  is  a 
succession  of  affections  going  on  in  the  inner  sense,  and  thus 
the  consciousness  of  a  passing  time.  So  long  as  my  intellec- 
tual agency  is  thus  passing  from  moment  to  moment  a  time 
is  passing  in  ray  consciousness  which  I  may  construct  into  a 
definite  period  ;  but  when  my  intellectual  agency  ceases,  all 
apprehension  of  passing  moments  must  cease,  and  I  can  be 
no  longer  conscious  that  a  time  is  passing.  If  again  my  in- 
tellectual agency  pass  from  moment  to  moment,  and  I  con- 
struct again  a  definite  period,  this  last  can  liave  no  deter- 
minate relation  to  the  former,  for  a  chasm  of  all  conscious- 
ness of  a  passing  time  separate.^  them,  and  it  were  impossi- 
ble that  I  should  bring  them  into  any  conjunction  in  self- 
consciousness.  Every  period,  as  subjective  time,  is  thus 
separate  from  all  other  periods,  and  all  determination  of  any 
period  in  relation  to  one  whole  of  time  is  impossible.  The 
pure  sense  can  only  give  its  pure  periods  as  separate,  and 
thus  the  conception  of  time  in  it  can  not  be  of  the  one  time 
but  the  manifold  times. 

And  so  also  with  respect  to  phenomena  in  their  periods. 
When  any  content  in  the  sense  is  constructed  in  a  definite 
figure  in  space,  the  intellectual  agency  gives  the  instants  as 
it  stands  in  the  diverse  points  and  the  moments  as  it  passes 
from  point  to  point,  as  it  does  in  a  pure  construction,  and 
thus  there  is  the  consciousness  that  a  time  is  passing ;  and 


PRIMITIVE     ELEMENTS     OF    CONNECTION.    245 

when  this  is  constructed  in  a  definite  period,  it  is  known  as 
the  time  in  which  the  phenomenon  appears  in  consciousness. 
But  this  phenomenon  thus  constructed  is  objective  in  this, 
that  the  content  in  the  sensibiUty  has  not  been  produced  by 
the  intellectual  agency,  and  has  only  been  constructed  in  its 
figure  in  space  and  its  period  in  time  by  it.  The  quaUty,  as 
real  appearance,  has  from  somewhere  beside  the  agency  of 
the  self  been  given  to  it,  and  the  agency  of  the  self  has 
constructed  its  form  in  space  and  time.  Yet,  while  as  real 
appearance  the  quality  is  objective,  yet  is  the  space  and  time 
in  which  it  appears  subjective  only.  It  has  been  constructed 
in  its  definite  period  by  my  agency  only  and  as  it  has  affected 
my  inner  sense,  and  thus  its  period  has  no  significancy  ex- 
cept in  my  self-consciousness.  When,  therefore,  I  have  con- 
structed one  phenomenon  in  its  period,  and  that  phenomenon 
has  passed,  the  constructing  agency  ceases  and  thus  the  in- 
ternal state  ceases  to  have  any  successive  modifications,  and 
thereby  all  consciousness  that  a  time  is  passing  becomes  im- 
possible. Where  some  new  content  in  the  sensibiUty  is 
again  constructed  in  its  definite  period,  that  phenomenon  in 
its  period  is  wholly  separate  from  the  former  phenomenon 
in  its  period,  and  the  chasm  of  all  possible  conjunction  of 
time  between  them  prevents  all  possibility  of  determining 
their  relationship  in  one  time.  Phenomena  in  the  sense  can 
not  be  cognized  as  in  one  time,  but  their  times  are  manifold. 
How,  then,  may  phenomena,  in  their  definite  separate  peri- 
ods, be  conceived  as  possible  to  be  determined  in  their  rela- 
tionship in  the  universal  objective  time  ?  And  here  we  an- 
swer, as  before  in  reference  to  determination  in  Space,  that 
it  is  possible  only  as  the  phenomena  are  themselves  neces* 
iarily  connected  in  their  relations.     How  this  may  be  in  re- 


246       THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

ference  to  the  three  modes  of  Time,  the  perpetual  successive 
and  simultaneous,  must  now  be  explained  ;  and  such  explan- 
ation completed  will  give  to  us  the  primitive  Elements  of  the 
operation  of  connection,  and  thus  complete  the  Idea  of  an 
Understanding.  Each  mode  of  time  must  be  taken  up  sepa- 
rately, inasmuch  as  the  manner  of  connection  between  the 
phenomenal  and  the  notional  must  in  each  be  different. 

1  The  a  priori  determination  of  an  experience  mpe^yeC- 
ual  Time. — ^The  conception  of  a  space-filling  force  giving 
occasion  for  continual  phenomena,  and  which  is  substance 
with  the  phenomenal  qualities  inhering,  is  sufficient  for  de- 
termining a  possible  experience  in  space ;  but  though  a  nec- 
essary preHminary  this  is  not  suflScient  for  determining  a 
possible  experience  in  time.  The  substance  being  constant 
in  place,  and  giving  occasion  for  continual  phenomena  in 
that  place,  is  a  sufiicient  condition  for  determining  the  bear- 
ing and  distance  in  space  of  any  other  phenomenon,  which 
may  appear  as  inhering  in  its  substance  in  its  place,  and 
which  can  be  perceived  in  communion  with  the  former  phe- 
nomena. Such  phenomena  will  be  determined  as  in  the 
same  one  objective  space,  and  in  their  relative  positions  in 
that  one  space.  A  constant  substance  as  of  a  star  in  the 
lieavens,  giving  occasion  for  a  continual  phenomenal  bright- 
ness in  that  constant  place,  is  sufficient  for  determining  that 
any  other  brightness  in  its  place  which  may  appear  in  com- 
munion with  it,  is  in  the  same  universal  space,  and  the  bear- 
ings and  distance  which  it  has  with  the  first  may  also  be 
readily  determined.  But  if  that  substance,  constant  in  its 
place  and  occasion  for  continual  phenomenal  brightness, 
never  give  occasion  for  any  alteration  in  its  phenomenal 
brightness,  all  the  change  that  would  be  possible  to  be 


PBIMITIVE    ELEMENTS     OF    CONNECTION.    247 

effected  by  it  in  the  inner  state  would  be  the  modifica  lion  of 
appearance  and  disappearance,  i.  e.,  of  perceiving  and  of 
not  perceiving  the  brightness.  When  the  organ  was  so  di- 
rected as  to  receive  the  content  and  construct  the  phenome- 
non in  space,  a  time  would  be  apprehended  as  passing  in 
self-consciousness,  but  when  the  content  had  gone  from  the 
sense  and  no  constructing  agency  was  modifying  the  inter- 
nal state,  all  apprehension  of  a  passing  time  would  be  im- 
possible. The  modification  of  inner  state  would  be  only 
that  of  consciousness  of  a  time  and  that  of  no  consciousness 
of  a  time,  and  this  simply  as  the  modifications  occurred  in 
the  inner  state  of  the  subject-self  perceiving  and  then  not  per- 
ceiving. That  any  such  modification  of  internal  state  was 
occasioned  by  the  substance  and  its  phenomenal  brightness 
could  never  be  determined  for  any  other  self-conscious  sub- 
ject, but  only  for  the  perceiving  and  non-perceiving  subject- 
self,  and  hence  the  passing  of  any  time  m  the  self-conscious- 
ness must  be  subjective  only.  That  there  was  any  one  uni- 
versal objective  time,  which  must  be  the  same  in  all  subjects 
of  self-consciousness,  could  not  be  thus  determined. 

But,  now,  we  will  conceive  that  this  space-filling  force, 
constant  in  the  same  place,  becomes  somehow  so  modified 
inherently  as  to  be  occasion  of  continual  phenomenon  but 
yet  phenomenon  in  alteration.  The  same  substance  gives 
occasion  now  for  perceiving  one  quality  as  phenomenon  in- 
hering in  it,  and  again  for  perceiving  another  quality,  and 
thus  varying  the  mode  in  which  the  substance  manifests  it- 
self in  the  sense.  The  substance  itself  thus  conditions  its 
phenomena,  and  the  conditioned  variations  of  phenomena 
condition  a  modification  of  internal  state,  and  thus  of  a  pass- 
ing time  in  the  self-conscious  percipient ;  and  this  not  merely 


248 


THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 


from  the  arbitrary  attention  given  by  the  perceiving  self, 
but  must  be  the  same  in  all  perceiving  subjects  of  a  self- 
consciousness.  The  substance  itself  conditions  the  varia- 
tions in  the  phenomena  perceived,  and  thus  of  the  altera- 
tions of  the  inner  sense  and  thereby  of  the  apprehension  of 
a  jiassing  time,  and  this  for  all  possible  percipients  of  the  va- 
ried phenomena;  and,  therefore,  for  all  possible  subjects  of 
self-conscious  apprehension  of  this  passing  time,  it  must  be 
tlie  same  time  and  objective  to  them  all.  Moreover,  this 
same  substance  perdures  through  all  modifications,  and  thus 
through  all  variations  of  its  phenomena,  and  thereby  deter- 
mines them  all  as  they  arise  and  depart  still  to  inhere  in  the 
same  substance ;  and  they,  therefore,  are  all  in  continuous 
connection  in  their  perpetual  variations.  The  period  of  eacli 
varied  phenomenon  is  connected  in  the  one  time  through 
which  the  substance  perdures,  and  thus  all  the  periods  of 
continuous  varied  phenomena  are  in  the  one  perpetual  time 
through  which  the  one  substance  perdures,  and  this  for  all 
possible  percipients  of  these  varied  phenomena  in  their  varying 
periods.  One  perpetual  time  embraces  all  the  periods  which 
can  come  up  in  any  experience  of  these  varying  phenomena, 
and  thus  this  substance  constant  in  place  is  not  only  space- 
filhng,  but  perduring  through  all  periods  is  also  a  time-filling 
substance.  The  determination  of  any  phenomenon  in  this 
continuous  variation,  to  its  relative  period  with  the  periods 
of  all  other  phenomena  in  the  one  perpetual  time,  is  in  this 
manner  manifestly  possible.  Let  all  phenomena,  as  they 
come  and  depart  in  continuous  alteration,  be  thought  as  the 
varied  appearances  of  the  same  one  perduring  substance, 
and  it  is  possible  to  determine  their  whole  experience  to  its 
proper  periods  in  the  one  perpetual  time,  and  only  in  their 


PEIMIIIVE    ELEMENTS    OF    CONNECTION.    249 

connectiou  of  phenomena  can  an  experience  be  so  deter- 
mined. 

And  now,  the  connection  here  is  manifestly  still  that  of 
subsistence  and  inherence,  inasmuch  as  it  is  substance  and 
accidence  still,  but  this  connection  is  given  in  a  modified 
manner,  not  as  constant  substance  and  accidence,  but  as  per- 
during  substance  and  varying  accidence.  The  qualities  in- 
hering in  the  same  substance  alter,  and  thus  the  substance 
becomes  in  the  thought  perpetual  source  rather  than  cori/- 
stard  ground  of  the  phenomena;  and  the  phenomena  com- 
ing and  departing  are,  in  the  thought,  depending  events 
rather  than  inhering  qualities.  The  substance  becomes  the 
notion  of  source,  and  the  accidence  becomes  the  phenome- 
non of  event,  and  the  connection  is  that  of  origin  and  de- 
pendence^ rather  than  as  before  of  subsistence  and  inhe- 
rence. We  shall  thus  have  the  a  priori  element  of  connec- 
tion in  time  to  bo  a  modification  of  the  element  found  in 
connection  in  space,  and  which  though  still  substance  and 
accidence,  we  may  distinguish  in  its  modified  conception  as 
Source  and  Event.  The  first  primitive  Element  of  connec- 
tion is,  in  Space,  Substance,  and  Accidence ;  and  this  as  still 
the  same  though  modified  in  the  conception  is,  in  perpetual 
Time,  Source  and  Event. 

2.  The  a  piHori  determination  of  an  experience  in  succes- 
sive Time. — The  perdurance  of  the  time-filling  force,  as 
source  for  all  the  varying  phenomena  which  as  event  depend 
upon  it,  would  be  sufiicient  for  determining  all  their  events 
in  their  several  periods  as  occurring  in  the  same  perpetual 
time.  The  period  oi*  one  could  not  be  when  the  period  of 
another  was,  but  the  events  must  come  up  singly  into  the 
experience,  and  thus  be  alternate  in  every  self-consciousness. 

11* 


250         THE     UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

But  with  no  other  conception  than  that  of  source  and  event 
as  element  of  connection,  it  would  be  impossible  to  deter- 
mine any  fixed  order  of  succession  in  the  one  time  for  all 
percipients  of  the  events,  or  precisely  where  in  one  progres- 
sus  of  all  time  the  period  of  any  event  in  our  experience 
was.  That  the  phenomena  of  fluidity,  of  congelation,  and 
of  vapor,  may  all  be  the  altered  events  from  one  source 
which  I  call  water,  is  sufficieiit  to  determine  that  when  one 
is  the  other  can  not  be,  and  thus  that  all  must  somehow  be- 
long to  one  perpetual  time,  but  if  I  have  nothing  further 
than  the  conception  of  the  connection  of  origin  and  depend- 
ence, I  can  not  determine  these  alternations  of  events  to  any 
fixed  order  of  succession  in  their  period.  That  the  phenom- 
ena alternate  with  each  other  at  hap-hazard  must  leave  the 
alternations  of  their  periods  in  an  equally  indeterminate 
rhapsody  of  a  coming  and  departing  time,  and  when  all  phe- 
nomena are  thus  conceived  as  simply  alternating  each  with 
each  in  their  perpetual  sources,  it  were  impossible  to  deter- 
mine that  any  experience  was  proceeding  either  backward 
or  forward  in  time,  or  whether  it  were  not  a  perpetual  oscil- 
lation to  and  fro  in  time.  There  is  no  fixed  point  in  the 
thought,  and  thus  no  determining  of  period  as  before  and 
after  in  a  whole  of  time.  All  experience,  as  it  originates 
in  one  perduring  source  must  be  in  one  perpetual  time,  but 
as  nothing  determines  the  flow  in  time  and  only  the  alterna- 
tion of  periods,  it  were  impossible  to  determine  any  order 
of  succession  to  our  experience  in  time. 

But,  if  we  will  now  conceive  that  a  modification  of  the 
source  gives  the  condition  for  the  alteration  of  the  event, 
and  that  this  modification  has  a  fixed  order  of  progressus, 
such  fixed  order  of  modification  in  the  thought  will  necessi- 


PRIMITIVE    ELEMENTS     OF    CONNECTI   )N.    261 

tate  the  order  in  the  varied  phenomena,  and  give  the  capa- 
bility of  determining  the  flow  of  experience  in  time  and  the 
relative  position  of  any  period  in  time  in  which  the  experi- 
ence occurs.  Thus  a  substance,  as  water,  may  be  an  abid- 
ing source  for  the  alternating  phenomena  of  congelation, 
fluidity,  steam,  etc.,  but  if  we  have  the  conception  of  source 
and  event  only,  and  thus  the  connection  of  origin  and  de- 
pendence alone,  we  can  never  determine  from  the  mere 
alternations  of  events  any  order  of  progress,  inasmuch  as 
these  alternations  may  be  desultory,  and  go  from  fluidity  to 
vapor  or  from  fluidity  to  congelation  with  no  necessary  con- 
nection in  the  oi"der  of  the  series,  though  always  originating 
in  the  same  perpetual  source.  Such  alternations  of  phenom- 
ena would  condition  corresponding  variations  in  the  internal 
state  of  the  percipient  subject,  and  the  period  of  each  might 
be  definitely  constructed  and  apprehended  as  in  the  same 
perpetual  time  from  the  connection  of  all  in  the  same  per- 
during  source  of  being ;  yet  these  periods  could  not  be  de- 
termined in  one  progressive  flow,  but  must  conform  to  the 
alternating  phenomena.  There  is  nothing  in  the  inner  sense 
to  determine  the  order  of  succession,  except  as  S(»me  fixed 
thought  be  given  as  notional  connection  in  the  un  ierstand- 
ing.  Let,  therefore,  the  substance,  water,  be  so  modified  as 
space-filling  by  combination  with  another  distinguishable 
force,  as  caloric,  that  the  congelation  can  not  appear  except 
under  such  a  given  modification  of  the  substance  ;  and  thus 
also  with  the  phenomena  of  fluidity,  and  of  steam ;  and  at 
once  a  fixed  order  of  succession  in  the  phenomena  is  deter- 
minable, and  thus  also  a  fixed  order  in  their  periods  in  the 
inner  sense,  and  the  series  must  proceed  in  accordance  with 
the  progressus  of  the  modifying  force,  caloric.     The  percep- 


252       THE     UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

tion  of  the  phenomena  must  be  conditioned  by  the  hiherent 
modifications  of  their  source.  The  determination  of  a  fixed 
order  of  modifications  in  the  thought  will  determine  a  fixed 
order  of  connection  in  the  phenomena,  and  thus  a  fixed  or- 
der in  their  periods  and  thereby  a  progressive  flowing  on  in 
time.  Some  standard,  as  a  perpetual  on-going  of  modifica- 
tion of  substance  in  the  thought  and  of  corresponding  phe- 
nomena in  the  perception,  must  be  taken,  and  it  will  render 
determinable  in  time  the  period  of  all  possible  varying  phe- 
nomena that  may  be  held  in  communion  with  it.  If  the 
series  can  only  be  a  progessus  and  never  a  regressus ;  as,  for 
example,  in  the  modifications  of  the  expressed  juice  of  the 
grape,  through  the  saccharine,  vinous,  and  acetous  fermenta" 
tions ;  or  the  order  of  the  seasons ;  then  an  order  of  suc- 
cessive time  may  be  determined,  and  all  possible  periods  in 
which  the  phenomena  may  appear  may  be  determined  in 
their  relative  positions  in  this  successive  time,  but  impossi 
ble  in  any  other  connection. 

This  connection  is  that  of  efficiency  and  adherence^  inas- 
much as  the  modification  of  the  source  makes  the  variation 
of  the  phenomenon,  and  this  as  event  is  not  mere  sequence 
but  necessary  result  as  dynamical  adherent.  The  substance 
thus  is  not  mere  source  for  an  event,  but  an  efficiency  is 
thought  to  be  in  it  which  necessitates  the  kind  of  event, 
and  thus  the  source  becomes  the  exact  conception  of  a  Cause 
and  the  necessitated  event  is  the  precise  conception  of  an 
Eflfect ;  and  we  have  thus,  as  condition  for  determining  phe- 
nomena in  successive  time,  a  seco?id  primitive  Element  of 
connection  as  Cause  and  Effect, 

3.  The  a  priori  determination  of  an  experience  in  slmul 
tatteous   Time. — The  connection  of  origin  and  dependence 


PEIMITIVE    ELEMENTS     OP    CONNECTION.    253 

in  the  notion  of  source  and  phenomenon  of  event  is  suffi- 
cient for  determining  plienomena  in  perpetual  time,  and  the 
connection  of  efficiency  and  adherence  in  the  notion  of  cause 
and  phenomenon  of  effiict  is  sufficient  for  determining  phe- 
nomena in  a  successive  time ;  but  quite  another  element  of 
connection  must  now  be  attained  for  determining  phenom- 
ena in  simultaneous  time.  The  modified  source  as  cause 
makes  the  event  to  be  what  it  is  as  an  effect,  and  as  the 
modifications  in  the  source  proceed,  such  also  is  the  necessi- 
tated succession  of  effects ;  and  as  these  phenomenal  effects 
must  modify  the  inner  sense  in  the  perception  of  them,  so 
the  periods  of  their  appearing  may  be  constructed  and  must 
be  thought  as  in  a  fixed  order  of  succession  in  time.  But 
any  number  of  such  series  of  cause  and  effect  may  be  con- 
ceived as  passing  on  each  in  its  own  fixed  order  of  progres- 
sus,  and  when  the  perception  of  these  phenomenal  effects  is 
promiscuous  from  one  series  to  another,  it  will  be  impossible 
from  the  connections  which  only  run  up  and  down  the  sepa- 
rate series  to  think  any  connection  in  communion  each  with 
each,  and  thereby  to  determine  that  any  of  the  phenomena 
in  each  are  contemporaneous,  or,  as  the  same  thing,  are  in 
simultaneous  time.  Each  can  be  determined  to  its  position 
in  its  period  according  to  the  connections  in  its  own  series, 
for  the  thought  has  fixed  the  order  of  the  progressus  in  that 
direction  up  and  down  the  succession,  but  no  one  series  has 
fixed  any  order  of  progressus  in  another  series,  and  it  can 
not  thus  be  said  whether  one  event  in  one  is  before  or  after 
any  event  in  another  serit-s.  The  thouglit  has  no  fixed  con- 
nections athwart  the  series,  and  it  is  therefore  impossible  to 
determine  the  period  of  one  in  its  time  as  having  any  rela- 
tion in  time  with  the  period  in  another.     Thus,  I  may  have 


254       THE     UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

different  modifications  of  the  substance,  water,  giving  the 
varied  phenomena  as  successive  events  of  congelation,  fluid- 
ity, and  steam,  and  when  I  think  them  as  connection  of  cause 
and  effect  in  a  necessary  order,  I  may  determine  the  periods 
of  each  effect  in  their  appearance  in  successive  time.  And, 
again,  when  I  have  the  varied  modifications  of  the  substance, 
caloric,  in  the  successive  temperatures  of  cold,  agreeable 
warmth,  and  hot,  and  think  them  in  connection  as  cause  and 
effect  in  a  necessary  order,  I  may  determine  the  periods  of 
such  effects  in  my  experience  in  successive  time.  But  if, 
now,  I  can  think  no  connection  between  the  ice  and  the 
cold,  the  fluid  and  the  agreeable  warmth,  the  steam  and  the 
heat,  I  can  never  determine  the  contemporaneousness  of 
cither,  because  I  can  only  determine  the  period  in  each  in 
their  own  successive  time,  but  not  at  all  determine  the  peri- 
ods in  each  to  be  simultaneous. 

Let,  however,  the  conception  of  reciprocal  modification 
be  here  entertained,  so  that  the  substance,  water,  modified 
by  the  caloric  successively  as  cause  for  the  effects  of  ice, 
liquidity,  and  steam,  also  modifies  reciprocally  the  substance, 
caloric,  as  successively  cause  for  the  effects  of  cold,  agreea- 
ble warmth,  and  heat ;  and  thus,  that  while  water  as  modi- 
fied by  caloric  is  the  source  of  congelation,  caloric  so  modi- 
fied by  water  is  the  source  of  cold,  and  thus  on  reciprocally 
through  all  successive  effects  in  each :  we  shall  thus,  from 
this  reciprocity  of  modification,  determine  a  necessary  con 
nection  of  effects  in  each,  and  that  the  period  of  the  one 
must  synchronize  with  the  period  of  the  other,  and  that  the 
phenomena  of  the  ice  and  the  cold,  the  fluid  and  the  warm, 
the  steam  and  the  hot,  must  be  together  simultaneously  each 
with  each.     The  series  of  effects,  and  thus  their  periods  in 


PRIMITIVE    ELEMENTS     OF    CONNECTION.    255 

time,  are  connected  as  concurrent  and  concomitant,  and  the 
determination  of  the  coetaneous  in  time  is  as  readily  made 
as  before  of  the  j^erpetiial  or  successive  in  time.  If  every 
event  in  its  series  is  not  thus  connected  by  a  reciprocal  effi- 
ciency with  every  other  concurrent  event  in  its  series,  it 
were  wholly  impossible  to  determine  them  to  be  contempo- 
raneous. All  effects  must  be  held  in  communion  by  a  recip- 
rocal efficiency,  as  necessarily  as  in  succession  by  a  direct 
efficiency. 

And  now,  this  last  species  of  connection  is  that  of  re- 
ciprociti/  and  coherence^  inasmuch  as  the  efficiency  each  way 
makes  a  mutual  variation  of  the  phenomena,  and  these  as 
effects  are  not  merely  adherents  as  successive  but  coherents 
as  in  communion.  The  conception,  therefore,  of  such  recip- 
rocal causation  is  precisely  that  of  Action  and  Reaction. 
This  is  the  third  primitive  Element  of  connection. 

Through  the  media  of  Space  and  Time  Ave  have  thus  atr 
tained  all  the  primitive  elements  of  connection,  and  which 
must  be  that  of  substance  and  accidence  having  the  connec- 
tion of  subsistence  and  inherence  for  determining  an  experi- 
ence in  Space ;  and  which,  for  determining  an  experience  in 
Time,  becomes-  modified  into  source  and  event,  having  the 
connection  of  origin  and  dependence  for  perpetual  time; 
into  cause  and  effect,  having  the  connection  of  efficiency 
and  adliercnce  for  successive  time ;  and  into  action  and  re- 
action, having  the  connection  of  reciprocity  and  coherence 
for  simultaneous  time.  No  cognition  of  an  experience  de- 
termined in  space  and  time  can  be,  except  as  the  phenome- 
nal in  the  sense  is  thought  to  be  connected  according  to 
these  primitive  elements  as  the  notional  in  the  understand- 
ing.    The  operation  of  connection  must,  therefore,  be  uni- 


256      THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

versally  conditioned  upon  the  notions  in  an  understanding 
of  Substance  as  ground  in  space,  and  of  Substance  as  source 
in  time;  which  last,  as  modified  for  succession,  becomes 
Cause ;  and  again  modified  for  concomitance,  becomes  Re- 
ciprocal Causation. 


SECTION     y. 


SOME    OF   THE   A   PRIORI   PRINCIPLES   IN   A   NATURE   OP 
THINGS. 

As  conditional  for  all  determination  of  objects  in  Space 
and  Time,  the  phenomena  must  inhere  in  their  permanent 
substance,  depend  upon  their  perpetual  source,  adhere  to 
their  successive  causes,  and  cohere  by  their  reciprocal  influ- 
ences. It  is  not  possible  that  the  phenomena  of  the  sense 
can  be  determined  in  space  and  time  except  as  they  are  thus 
connected  among  themselves,  and  thus  condition  the  order 
of  their  experience  in  the  understanding ;  and  wherever 
there  is  such  a  determined  order  of  experience,  there  must 
be  real  phenomena  standing  in  their  valid  substances  causes 
and  counter-influences,  and  constituting  through  such  con- 
nections a  systematic  and  organized  whole  of  things  which 
we  properly  term,  as  distinct  from  all  ideal  connections  in 
our  subjective  thinking,  an  objective  world.  Separate  and 
fleeting  appearances  are  connected  in  their  sources  as  events, 
and  in  their  reciprocities  as  concomitant  occurrences,  and  this 
every-way  connection  in  our  experience  gives  a  nature  of 
things^  and  considered  as  a  whole  of  all  such  connected 
things  we  term  it  Universal  Nature. 


A    PRIORI    PRINCIPLES    IN    NATURE.  25v 

This  is  the  province  of  the  Understanding,  to  take  the 
perceptions  of  the  sense  and  determine  their  connection  in 
a  judgment  of  a  natm-e  of  things;  and  except  in  such  field 
of  operation  it  is  impossible  that  an  understanding  shouki 
eifect  any  judgments.  If  there  may  be  existence  wliich  is 
not  subjected  to  the  space  and  time-determinations,  and  not 
bound  in  the  connections  of  substancefe  causes  and  reciprocal 
influences,  it  must  be  held  as  utterly  without  signification 
for  an  understanding  which  can  operate  only  in  the  connec- 
tions of  the  phenomenal  through  the  notional.  The  super- 
natural is  as  nothing  for  an  understanding  judging  accord- 
ing to  the  sense.  It  would  be  as  preposterous  to  put  the 
understanding  to  the  work  of  determining  the  supernatural, 
as  to  put  the  sense  to  determining  substances  and  causes 
which  are  wholly  supersensible.  If  we  have  no  faculty 
which  may  transcend  the  cognitions  given  in  an  understand- 
ing then,  truly,  must  we  be  ever  shut  up  within  nature,  and 
that  any  existence  may  lie  beyond  nature  must  be  wholly 
inconceivable. 

But  this  whole  field  of  nature,  as  of  the  conception  of 
phenomena  connected  into  a  universal  whole  of  all  possible 
experience  in  space  and  time,  is  the  legitimate  province  of 
the  understanding,  and  all  that  is  possible  to  be  known  of 
it  must  be  contained  in  such  discursive  judgments.  Having 
now  attained  the  process  for  all  such  judgments  through  all 
the  difierent  methods  of  connection  Avhich  are  a  priori  pos- 
sible in  an  experience  determined  in  space  and  time,  and 
thereby  explained  how  it  is  possible  to  verify  the  synthetical 
judgment  in  its  addition  of  a  new  cognition  of  the  notion; 
we  may  further  take  the  conception  of  such  verified  judg- 
ments, and  by  an  analysis  of  their  conditions  we  may  find 


258       THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

many  predicates  for  an  analytical  judgment,  which  will  give 
to  us  so  many  necessary  and  universal  principles  as  condi- 
tions in  a  nature  of  things.  This  we  will  now  j^roceed  to 
accomplish  through  each  of  the  connective  notions  made  use 
of  in  their  methods  of  discursive  connection,  viz. :  the  Sub- 
stance^ both  as  ground  and  source ;  the  Cause^  as  condition- 
ing changes ;  and  the  Reciprocal  Agency^  as  conditioning 
concomitances. 

1.  Substance. — This,  we  have  found,  is  a  notion  wholly 
supplied  in  the  understanding ;  impossible  to  be  reached  by 
the  sense ;  standing  under  all  phenomena  as  their  ground  or 
source ;  and  yet  which  may  be  verified  as  objective  being 
and  not  mere  subjective  notion,  from  the  determination  in 
space  and  time  which  it  gives  to  ex2:)erience.  As  pure  con- 
ception in  the  understanding  it  is  ground  for  all  quality  and 
source  for  all  event ;  and  as  verified  in  a  determined  experi- 
ence, objectively,  it  is  a  space-filling  force  in  its  ground  for 
all  perceived  quality,  and  a  time-filling  force  in  its  source  for 
all  changing  events.  As  no  construction  can  place  it  in  the 
light  of  consciousness,  so  no  immediate  intuition  can  take 
cognizance  of  it;  but  through  the  media  of  space  and  of 
time,  it  has  been  a  priori  found  to  be  a  necessary  condition 
for  all  determination  of  an  experience  in  the  relations  of 
space  and  the  relations  of  perpetual  time ;  and,  therefore, 
wherever  an  experience  determines  itself  in  its  relations  in  a 
whole  of  space,  there  must  be  a  space-filling  substance  as 
permanent  ground  for  the  phenomena  which  appear  un- 
changed in  the  same  place;  and  wherever  an  experience 
determines  itself  in  its  relation  to  one  perpetual  time,  there 
must  be  a  time-filling  substance  as  perduring  source  for  the 
changing  phenomena  thei-e  occurring. 


A    PRIORI    PRIXCIPLES    IN    NATURE.  256 

And  here,  if  we  will  take  the  conception  of  this  verified 
objective  space-filling  and  time-enduring  substance,  and 
analyze  it  as  connective  notion  for  qualities  in  one  space  and 
events  in  one  time,  and  thus  standing  as  the  substantial  es- 
sence and  thing  in  itself  of  material  nature,  and  of  which  all 
perceived  phenomena  of  quality  and  event  are  but  the  modes 
of  its  manifestation  through  the  different  organs  of  the 
sense,  Ave  shall  in  such  analysis  be  able  to  find  many  a  priori 
principles  of  nature,  as  the  analytical  elements  and  condi- 
tions without  which  a  nature  of  thino^s  as  oiven  to  an 
experience  determined  in  space  and  time  can  not  be. 

Let  us,  then,  take  the  conception  in  W\^  first  place,  of  sub* 
stance  as  spacefilling^  and  find  the  analytical  content  which 
must  belong  to  it.  Our  analysis  must  be  of  that  which  is 
wholly  supersensual,  and  not  at  all  phenomenal  but  notional 
as  the  transcendental  ground  and  condition  for  all  phenom- 
ena ;  and  thus,  an  indispensable  prerequisite  to  such  analy- 
sis is  a  distinct  conception  of  this  nnderstanding  notion  of  a 
space-filling  force.  All  conception  of  force  involves  action, 
but  a  mere  pure  act  does  not  give  the  conception  of  force. 
Action  in  one  direction,  meeting  no  other  action,  could  have 
nothing  answering  to  the  conception  of  force.  Except  as 
action  meets  action  and  thereby  counter-action  takes  place,  no 
generation  of  force  is  conceivable,  and  hence  all  conception  of 
force  is  truly  that  of  a  product  from  an  antagonism.  It  is  not 
original  pure  act,  but  the  resultant  of  pure  counter-action. 
At  the  point  of  counter-agency,  as  pure  notion  in  the  under- 
standing, shall  we  first  attain  the  conception  of  force  as  pure 
understanding-conception.  Such  a  point  becomes  an  occu- 
pied position  in  space  and  resisting  all  displacement,  and  to 
the  extent  to  which  the  diverse  points  in  a  space  are  contig- 


2G0       THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

uously  thus  occupied  by  pure  forces  is  there  a  filling  of  space, 
and  a  resistance  to  all  foreign  intrusion  within  such  space. 
And  here,  with  this  conception  of  pure  force  as  occupying  a 
space,  w-e  have  all  that  is  now  necessary  to  be  considered  as 
sufficient  for  the  pure  understanding-conception  of  a  space- 
filling substance.  This  pure  space-filling  force,  as  thing  in 
itself,  can  not  appear  in  the  sense,  but  may  very  well  be 
occasion  that  there  should  be  phenomena  in  the  sense.  It 
may  readily  give  content  in  the  sensibility,  and  thus  occasion 
different  affi^ctions  which  may  be  both  distinguished  and 
conjoined,  and  thus  become  distinct  and  definite  phenomena. 
To  the  sensibility  of  the  touch  and  muscular  effort,  it  may 
give  content  for  the  phenomena  of  resistance,  figure,  super- 
ficial smoothness  or  roughness,  hardness  or  softness,  and 
weight  or  pressure,  etc.  And  so,  also,  through  the  inter- 
vention of  other  media  it  may  give  content  to  vision ;  to 
hearing,  smelling,  or  tasting ;  and  this  in  all  possible  ways 
of  such  organs  of  sensibility  becoming  affected,  according 
to  the  modifications  mternally  of  the  space-filling  force.  The 
phenomena  are  thus  the  modes  in  which  the  one  space- 
filling force  manifests  itself  through  the  perceptions  of  the 
sense.  This  permanently  fills  its  space,  and  stands  in  its 
position,  and  is  constant  occasion  for  the  like  content  in  all 
organs  of  all  sensibilities.  It  thus  must  determine  its  own 
place,  and  it.^  relation  to  all  other  space-filling  substances  ii? 
their  places,  and  become  objective  experience  as  the  same 
thing  in  its  place  for  all  occasions  when  its  phenomena  are 
perceived,  and  for  9I!.  subjects  of  the  self-conscious  percep- 
tions. 

If  we  had  cnly  Ae  vague  conception  of  substance  and 
of  cause  as  •oinohow  standing  under  the  quaUties  and  be- 


A    PKIOKI    PRINCIPLES    IN    XATURE.  261 

tween  the  events,  we  could  not  make  any  intelligible  analysis 
of  them,  nor  attain  any  a  2yriori  principles  of  nature  from 
thcni.  But  the  clear  conception  we  may  gain  of  force  as  of 
two  counteracting  activities,  and  the  modifications  that 
must  occur  when  forces  interfere  with  each  other,  lays  open 
before  us  the  whole  intrinsic  nature  of  substances  and  causes. 
They  can  not  be  constructed  and  thus  be  immediately  beheld 
as  mathematical  figure,  and  therefore  no  analysis  of  them 
can  be  intuitiv^e  ;  but  they  can  be  clearly  thought,  and  such 
thought  may  have  its  complete  analysis,  and  such  analysis 
will  give  necessary  principles  in  nature. 

And  now,  with  this  pure  understanding-conception  of 
the  space-filling  substance,  it  is  quite  manifest  from  a  mere 
analysis  thereof,  that  a  permanent  impenetrability  must 
belong  to  it  in  the  space  which  it  occuj^ies,  and  that  this 
will  be  a  valid  index  in  the  sense,  that  a  space-filling  sub- 
stance occupies  the  place  into  which  the  phenomena  of 
another  substance  can  not  be  introduced  without  a  displace- 
ment of  the  phenomena  already  there  appearing.  The  prin- 
ciple of  impenetrability  must  thus  belong  to  a  nature  of 
things,  and  the  conception  of  such  impenetrability  must  be 
essential  to  the  conviction  that  any  phenomenon  has  sub- 
stantial objective  reality.  The  empirical  determination  of 
substance  to  its  place  may  be  thereby  effected  when  an  im- 
penetrability is  perceived  in  that  place,  and  the  sameness  of 
a  substance  may  be  determined  for  the  sense  when  the  same 
phenomena  are  occasioned  from  the  same  impenetrability. 

And  so  also  inertia  must  be  a  first  principle  in  matter. 
The  antagonisms  which  constitute  the  force  in  each  point  of 
space  filled  balance  each  other,  and  are  thus  at  rest  from  this 
mutual  resistance^  and  so  the  matter  must  remain  at  rest 


252        THE    UNDERSTANDING   IN    ITS   IDEA. 

except  as  impelled  by  the  impact  of  some  other  material  force. 
When  thus  impelled  the  antagonisms  have  a  greater  energy 
on  bne  side,  and  must  therefore  move  before  this  greater 
energy  and  in  the  direction  from  it,  and  so  the  matter  must 
continue  to  move  till  some  outer  material  force  be  met  to 
restore  the  equilibrium  of  the  antagonist  energies.  Inertia 
is  not  inaction  intrinsically,  but  intrinsic  antagonist  action 
self-balanced.  The  matter  holds  itself  in  its  given  state  as  a 
ms  mertice. 

And  again,  that  infinite  divisibility  is  an  a  p^^iori  pre- 
dicate of  all  material  substance  is  clear  in  an  analytical  judg- 
ment. The  space-filling  force  is  a  point  in  the  antagonism 
of  a  pure  counteraction  and  has  thus,  as  the  mathematical 
point  it  occupies,  position  only  and  not  magnitude.  And 
the  entire  space  filled  by  the  substance  is  so  filled  only,  as 
every  point  in  the  space  is  position  for  the  point  of  an  an- 
tagonism engendering  force,  and  thus  the  substance  is  as 
divisible  as  the  space  which  it  fills.  It  is  also  manifest  that 
the  intensity  of  the  counteraction  is  the  measure  of  the  force 
engendered  in  every  point  of  the  space  filled,  and  therefore 
that  the  same  space  may  yet  be  filled,  while  the  quantity  of 
the  substance  filling  may  differ  in  an  infinite  degree.  Every 
point  in  the  space  may  have  its  occupying  force,  and  the  in- 
tensity of  the  force  may  be  from  the  point  =0,  onwards  to 
an  infinite  amount.  Substance  is  thus  divisible  without 
limit  in  two  ways ;  in  the  extent  of  space  filled,  and  in  the 
intensity  with  which  the  same  space  is  filled.  The  atom  of 
matter  is  thus  no  possible  2>henomenon  in  the  sense-concep- 
tion, but  a  notion  in  the  understanding-conception.  It  is  tlie 
force  engendered  in  one  point  of  pure  counteraction,  and 
while  it  may  occupy  space  merely  as  simple  position  with. 


A    PKIORI    rillNCIFLES    IN    NATURE.  263 

out  extension,  it  yet  may  be  of  an  infinite  diversity  in  its 
intensity,  and  thus  some  one  atom  might  have  an  intensity 
Avhich  should  equal  the  aggregate  atoms  of  a  world.  Not 
only  infinite  divisibility  as  diminution  of  space  filled,  but 
also  infinite  divisibility  as  diminution  of  intensity  in  the 
same  place,  may  be  a  priori  predicated  of  all  material  being ; 
inasmuch  as  an  evanishing  in  the  same  place  may  as  truly 
pass  through  infinite  degrees,  as  a  dividing  of  the  place  may 
pass  through  infinite  limits.  In  this  respect,  space  and  sub- 
stance difter  in  the  thought :  space  is  divisible  only  as  extent ; 
substance  is  divisible  both  as  extensive  and  as  intensive. 

We  may  also,  in  the  second  place,  analyze  the  conception 
of  substance  as  time-filling^  and  determine  some  of  its  a 
priori  principles  in  this  direction.  This  same  space-filling 
force  indicating  itself  in  its  constant  impenetrability,  may 
be  conceived  as  giving  its  content  to  the  sensibility,  and  in 
this  manner  its  phenomena  to  the  perception,  and  these  as 
changing  in  their  definite  places,  or  as  themselves  changing 
in  the  same  [dace;  and  in  either  case  a  filling  of  time  will  be 
determined.  The  moving  of  the  phenomena  from  place  to 
place  in  the  perception  must  affect  the  inner  state,  and  thus 
hiduce  the  consciousness  that  a  time  is  passing ;  and  this 
may  be  conjoined  into  its  definite  periods,  while  the  con- 
stancy of  an  impenetrability  in  the  changing  places  of  the 
phenomena  will  give  a  perduring  substance  through  all  these 
changes,  and  thus  determine  these  definite  periods  to  be  in 
one  perpetual  time.  Or,  the  changing  of  the  phenomena  in 
the  same  place  must  also  affect  the  inner  state  by  the  pei- 
ception,  and  thereby  induce  the  consciousness  that  a  time  is 
passing;  and  this  may  be  conjoined  in  definite  periods,  and 
the  constancy  of  the  impenetrability  will  give  the  same  sub- 


264        THE     UNDERSTANDIXG     IX    ITS     IDEA. 

stance  as  permanent  source  for  the  changed  phenomena,  and 
thus  determine  the  definite  periods  to  stand  in  the  one  j^er- 
petual  time.  In  either  case,  therefore,  the  permanent  sub- 
stance perdures  through  a  time,  and  is  thus  time-filhng. 

An  i  now,  inasmuch  as  the  perpetuity  of  the  one  time  is 
determined  only  by  the  perdurance  of  the  one  substance  as 
source  through  all  its  changes,  and  that  as  the  one  time  en- 
dures so  the  one  source  of  all  changes  of  phenomena  must 
endure;  it  follows,  that  the  understanding  can  admit  of 
nothing  which  is  new  to  come  into  its  conception.  That 
which  arises  and  departs  is  the  phenomenal,  and  is  new  only 
as  a  sense-conce[)tion ;  but  it  has  come  up  from  some  per- 
during  source,  and  when  it  has  de{)arted  there  has  not  been 
a  void  left  in  the  understanding,  for  the  substance  still  is,  as 
the  constant  source  for  new  phenomena ;  and  thus,  for  the 
understanding  neither  a  coming  nor  departing  can  be,  but  a 
perpetuity  of  things  endures.  Origin  from  nothing,  and 
extinction  in  nothing,  are  both  inconceivable.  It  would  be 
a  void  of  all  being  before  and  after  the  phenomenon  ;  or,  a 
chasm  of  vacuity  between  phenomena ;  which  would  cut  off 
^1  possible  connection  in  the  determinations  of  the  under- 
standing, and  in  the  admission  of  which  the  understanding 
would  annihilate  its  own  functions.  Neither  nature  nor 
time  could  be  thought  in  their  unity,  nor  that  nature 
had  any  determinate  position  in  time.  This  is,  there- 
fore, an  a  priori  principle  of  nature — that  no  change  of 
phenomena  can  arise  from  non-being,  and  vanish  again  into 
non-being,  but  must  ever  originate  in  some  permanent 
source,  and  depart  with  that  source  still  perduring.  The 
old  dictum  of  the  ancient  philosophers  is  peremptory,  viz. , 


1    FBIOKI    PRINCIPLES    IN    NATURE.         265 

"  E  nilo,  posse  nil  gigni ; 
In  niium,  nil  posse  reverti." 

Whether  substance  itself  Diay  begin,  and  thus  the  crea- 
tion of  a  thing  in  itself  be  effected  by  that  which  is  fi-ee 
personality  and  not  a  thing,  is  a  question  for  quite  another 
faculty  than  the  understanding.  So  far  as  an  action  of  the 
understanding  can  reach,  it  must  be  by  bringing  phenomena 
in  discursive  connections  through  the  medium  of  the  no- 
tional, and  it  were  as  absurd  to  attempt  thinking  phenomena 
into  a  nature  of  things  without  a  permanent  substance,  as  to 
attempt  perceiving  the  shapes  of  phenomena  without  place. 
The  conception  of  the  substance  as  notion  in  the  under- 
standing is  conditional  for  all  function  of  an  understanding ; 
and  of  course  the  inquiry,  whence  is  the  permanent  sub- 
stance ?  must  transcend  all  action  of  the  understanding  as 
the  faculty  judging  according  to  sense.  The  substance,  as 
space-filling  force,  verified  in  the  determination  of  an  expe- 
rience to  the  space-relations,  and  the  substance  also  as  time- 
filling  force,  verified  in  the  determination  of  an  experience 
to  the  time-relation  of  perpetuity,  being  given,  the  under- 
standing may  use  it  for  connecting  a  universe  of  nature  in 
the  immensity  of  one  space  and  the  eternity  of  one  time ; 
but,  when  it  would  transcend  connections  through  this  sub- 
stance, and  inquire  for  an  origin  of  the  substance  itself,  it  is 
abolishing  the  very  notion  which  determines  the  immensity 
and  the  eternity  in  their  oneness,  and  obliging  itself  to  think 
another  substance  in  another  immensity  and  eternity,  of 
which  this  system  of  nature  in  its  space  and  time  is  but  a 
modification.  It  is  an  understanding  attempting  to  over- 
leap itself  by  issuing  its  agency  outward  into  some  higher 
ixiderstanding,  and  could  even  thus  only  employ  itself  in  an 

12 


26d        THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

endless  leaping  from  sphere  to  sphere,  without  the  possibil- 
ity  of  resting  in  a  final  landing-place. 

The  perduring  source  of  these  changing  phenomena  is 
conceived  to  be  before  the  first  phenomenon,  and  to  con- 
tinue still  in  the  departure  of  tlie  last,  and  thus  to  hold  all 
the  phenomena  within  one  perpetuated  duration,  and  neither 
beginnuig  nor  ending  nor  at  all  exhausting  itself  in  any  of 
these  perpetuated  successions.  The  substance  persists 
through  all  modes  of  its  manifestation  without  beginning  or 
end,  augmentation  or  diminution.  The  force  in  one  point 
may  be  modified  by  any  combination  of  forces  in  other 
points,  but  the  space-filling  force  once  given,  its  modifica- 
tions in  any  part  can  only  occasion  new  phenomena  in  the 
sense,  not  any  creations  of  new  nor  annihilations  of  old  sub- 
stances. It  is  thus  an  a  2^nori  principle  of  Nature,  that 
within  itself  nothing  is  created  nor  annihilated  y  but  itself 
remains  the  same  whole  through  all  its  transformations.  If 
any  thing  may  be  added  to  it,  or  taken  from  it,  it  must  be 
by  some  ah  extra  interference ;  and  is,  of  course,  the  intro- 
duction of  some  supernatural  agency  which  can  have  nc 
conceivable  significancy  in  any  Judgment  of  the  Under- 
standing. 

And  tliis  conception  of  the  permanency  of  the  substance 
of  nature,  and  the  coming  and  departing  of  the  phenomena 
of  nature,  discriminates  between  some  other  conceptions 
which  are  often  confounded.  The  conception  of  change  is 
that  of  any  modification  in  the  permanent  substance ;  the 
conception  of  alteration  is  that  of  the  departing  of  one  phe- 
nomenon and  the  arising  of  another ;  and  the  conception  of 
variation  is  that  in  which  one  phenomenon  is  made  distinct 
from  another.     Thus  the  permanent  substance  changes  and 


A    PRIORI    PRINCIPLES    IN    NATURE.         2G7 

thereby  alters  its  phenomena,  and  these  phenomena  vary 
one  from  the  other.  There  can  be  no  change  but  in  a  per- 
manent  which  neither  alters  nor  varies.  We  may  change 
the  mode  of  the  same  thing,  alter  one  thing  for  another,  and 
vary  different  things  among  themselves. 

We  have  also  in  this  the  conception  of  chance.  It  is  the 
origination  of  phenomena  from  no  permanent  som-ce.  It  is 
no  positive  judgment,  but  a  negation  of  the  connective 
conditional  for  all  judgments,  and  assumes  an  origination 
from  a  void  of  all  being.  It  is  the  absurdity  of  think- 
ing through  the  sense ;  of  discarding  the  notion  and 
thus  vacating  the  understanding,  and  yet  attempting  to 
account  for  the  connections  of  phenomena.  It  is  a  negation 
of  the  law  of  thought  itself,  and  thus  such  an  experience  of 
nature  is  an  absurd  and  impossible  conception.  A  Nature 
of  things  can  not  admit  of  Chance. 

2.  Cause. — This  we  have  already  found  to  be  a  primi- 
live  Element  of  connection  and  thus  a  primitive  understand- 
ing-cognition, wholly  supersensible,  and  yet  possible  to  be 
verified  as  objective  being  in  the  determination  of  an  expe- 
rience to  successive  time.  We  shalU  find  a  clear  conception 
of  cause  to  admit  of  an  a  priori  analysis,  which  will  give 
the  predicates  of  a  nature  of  things  in  an  analytical  judg- 
ment in  several  important  particulars;  and  which,  as  in- 
volved in  the  connections  of  nature  itself,  must  be  the  nec- 
essary and  universal  principles  and  conditions  of  a  nature 
of  things.  The  first  requisite  is,  the  attaining  of  a  clear 
and  complete  conception  of  Cause.  No  construction  is  pos- 
sible that  it  may  be  given  in  a  definite  intuition,  but  its  con- 
ception must  be  wholly  within  the  thought  of  the  under 
standing. 


268       THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS     IDEA.. 

When  we  recur  to  our  conception  of  substance,  we  have 
H  force  in  every  point  of  space  which  the  substance  occupies, 
and  is  thus  spa'ie-filling ;  and  a  perduring  through  e^ery 
instant  of  time  that,  as  source  for  coming  and  departing 
phenomena,  the  substance  continues  and  is  thus  time-fillmg. 
This  substance,  as  time-filling,  is  the  conception  of  a  modi- 
fication of  the  internal  space-filling  force  so  that  as  thus 
modified  it  becomes  occasion  for  an  altered  content  in  the 
sensibility,  and  consequently  of  an  altered  phenomenon  in 
perception ;  and  we  say  that  the  same  thing  has  become 
changed.  But,  manifestly,  this  space-filhng  force  as  sub- 
stance will  hold  itself  at  rest  in  each  point  of  its  antagonism 
from  the  constancy  of  the  balanced  counteraction,  and  thus 
nature  will  hold  itself  in  utter  immobility  and  which  is  its 
iJiertia  throughout,  if  the  force  in  one  portion  of  space  does 
not  intrude  upon  the  places  occupied  by  other  forces ;  or, 
which  is  the  same  thing,  if  one  substance  does  not  become 
combined  with,  or  make  an  impulsion  upon  another  sub- 
stance. When  such  cases  occur,  the  combination  of  forces 
must  work  an  inner  modification  of  the  antagonism  in  each 
point  of  counteraction,  and  thus  necessitate  altered  contents 
for  the  sensibility  and  consequently  altered  phenomena  in 
the  perception,  and  we  shall  have  chemical  changes  ;  and 
the  impulsion  of  the  forces  must  modify  the  intensities  of 
the  points  of  counteraction,  and  we  shall  have  mechanical 
changes.  In  all  such  modifications  of  forces  as  space-filling, 
while  the  perduring  impenetrability  will  indicate  the  sub- 
stance which  is  the  permanent  source  of  these  altered  phe- 
nomena, yet  will  that  substance  which  obtrudes  its  modifica- 
tions upon  this  permanent  source  be  a  distinct  conception ; 
and  it  is  this  obtruding  of  one  space-filling  force  upon  an- 


A    PRIORI    PRINCIPLES    IN    NATURE.         269 

other  in  its  modifications  which,  precisely,  is  the  conception 
of  cause.  All  physical  cause  implies  a  duality  of  agency. 
Thus  the  permanent  substance  which  we  conceive  to  have 
been  constant  in  all  the  alternations  of  congelation,  fluidity, 
vapor,  etc.,  we  conceive  as  the  source  of  these  alternating 
phenomena ;  but  the  substance  which  has  obtruded  itself  in 
its  modifying  force,  and  thus  produced  the  changes  in  the 
permanent  source,  we  conceive  as  the  cause  of  these  alter- 
nating phenomena.  The  substance,  caloric,  is  combined 
with  the  substance,  water,  and  thus  as  one  space-filling  force 
so  modifying  the  other  space-filling  force,  that  in  its  various 
modifications  the  caloric  is  cause  and  the  water  is  source 
now  for  congelation,  again  for  fluidity,  and  again  for  vapor, 
etc.,  as  chemical  changes ;  and  the  ivory  of  the  billiard-ball 
at  rest  as  space-filling  substance  has  been  so  modified  in  its 
intensities  of  counter-agency  at  each  point  in  the  space  it 
filled,  by  the  obtrusion  of  the  ivory  of  the  moving  ball  upon 
its  place,  that  the  first  has  become  source  of  continual  dis- 
placement in  the  resulting  movement,  and  the  last  has  been 
the  cause  of  such  movement,  as  mechanical  change.  Thus 
in  all  cases  of  causation,  the  conception  of  a  cause  is  that  ol 
a  space-filling  force  as  one  substance  obtruding  itself  upon 
the  i^lace  of  another  space-filling  force  as  substance,  and  by 
the  modifications  induced  securing  chemical,  mechanical,  or 
other  changes  in  the  latter,  which  manifest  themselves  to 
the  sense  in  the  altered  j)henomena. 

It  is,  therefore,  clearly  involved  in  the  very  conception 
of  a  cause,  that  as  the  changes  induced  in  the  permanent 
source  by  the  modifications  of  the  cause  pass  along  accord- 
ing to  the  conditions  of  the  combination  of  the  substance- 
cause  with  the  substance-source,  so  the  altered  phenomena 


270       THE     UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

springing  from  these  changes  in  their  substance-source  must 
pass  on  in  the  same  conditioned  succession.  The  modifica- 
tion of  the  source  by  the  cause  is  the  condition  for  the 
altered  phenomena,  and  this  alteration  of  phenomena  must 
correspond  to  the  changes  in  the  source.  The  perception 
can,  therefore,  be  but  in  one  order,  and  this  conditioning  of 
an  ordered  series  of  perceptions  is  an  index  of  an  ordering 
soi'ies  of  causation.  When  the  phenomena  in  their  succes- 
sions in  the  sense  can  be  perceived  in  one  order  only,  and 
not  the  reverse,  then  it  is  that  an  ordered  series  of  changes 
is  going  on  in  the  substance-source  as  conditioned  by  th( 
combination  with  it  of  the  substance-cause ;  and  in  this  may 
we  determine  an  objective  succession  as  distinct  from  mere 
successive  appearance  in  the  subject  perceiving.  There  is 
in  this  an  alteration  of  phenomena,  and  not  a  mere  succes- 
sion of  perceiving  acts. 

Thus,  when  in  a  hemisphere  of  the  heavens,  I  perceive 
one  star  in  succession  after  another,  and  as  one  passes  from 
my  sight  another  comes  into  vision,  the  perceiving  agency 
is  as  truly  successive  and  may  be  constructed  into  its  defii>- 
ite  periods  as  completely  as  if  one  star  had  been  the  condi- 
tion of  my  seeing  the  next,  and  thus  on  through  the  whole 
series.  Merely  such  a  succession  in  perceiving  will  deter- 
mine nothing  in  relation  to  an  objective  succession  in  the 
phenomena  themselves ;  but  if  I  find  I  may  reverse  my  or- 
der of  perception,  and  see  the  same  stars  successively  in  a 
retracing  of  my  series  of  perceptions,  I  then  know  that  not 
the  stars  themselves  are  successive,  but  only  my  perception 
of  them.  But  if  I  follow  my  perception  of  the  tides  as 
ebbing  and  flowing,  and  thus  at  any  one  point  as  rising  and 
falling  successively,  and  I  can  not  perceive  in  an  inverse 


A     PRIORI    PRINCIPLES     IN    NATURE.  271 

orvkr  that  the  water  is  either  rising  or  falHng  at  pleasure ;  I 
then  determine  that  it  is  not  a  mere  successive  perceiving, 
but  an  objective  succession  in  the  -phenomena  themselves. 
And  in  this  objective  succession  of  phenomena,  I  shall  have 
an  index  of  a  conditioning  series  of  causes.  And  here,  that 
I  may  determine  the  cause  and  the  source  of  these  succes- 
sive phenomena,  I  must  be  able  to  determine  the  objective 
reality  of  their  substances,  and  in  these,  which  is  the  cause 
and  which  is  the  source.  I  may  very  readily  determine  a 
perpetual  impenetrability  in  the  rising  and  falling  water,  and 
know  that  to  be  permanent  source  for  the  .flow  and  ebb  of 
the  tide  which  appears ;  but  it  may  be  much  more  difficult 
to  determine  that  the  force  of  the  revolving  moon  modifies 
in  combination  with  it  the  space-filling  force  of  the  substance 
water,  and  thus  makes  the  latter  to  be  source  for  the  ebbing 
and  flowing  tide ;  and  yet  except  as  I  have  so  determined, 
though  I  may  have  determined  that  there  is  causation,  yet 
have  I  not  found  what  is  the  cause.  I  may  very  readily 
determine  that  the  phenomena  of  saccharine,  vinous,  and  ace- 
tous fermentation  are  objective  alterations  and  not  merely 
successive  perceptions,  for  I  can  not  vary  the  order  of  the 
j)erceptions;  and  I  may  also  determine  the  source  of  these 
altered  phenomena  of  the  sugar,  the  wine,  and  tlie  vinegar, 
by  determining  a  permanent  impenetrability  constant  in  one 
substance  through  them  all ;  and  though  I  have  thus  clearly 
determined  that  this  substance-source  must  stand  in  combi- 
nation Avith  some  substance-cause  and  be  modified  thereby, 
yet  it  may  be  impossible  for  me  to  determine  what  that 
permanent  space-filling  force  in  its  perpetual  impenetrability 
is,  which  is  the  substance-cause  for  these  changes  ;  but  until 
such  is  found,  though  some  cause  must  be,  yet  what  the 
cause  is  has  not  vet  been  determined. 


272         THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

That  a  cause  is,  lias  a  safe  index  in  this — an  ordered  sue 
cession  of  phenomena  perceived  in  a  determined  series;  what 
a  cause  is,  must  be  determined  in  this — a  perpetual  impene- 
trability that  marks  the  substance,  which  by  combining  with 
the  substance-source  of  the  phenomena  modifies  its  changes, 
and  thus  conditions  its  successions  of  phenomena.  One 
space-filling  force  can  not  impinge  upon  or  combine  with 
another,  without  so  modifying  it  as  to  induce  some  changes 
in  it,  which  must  manifest  themselves  in  the  sense  by  some 
alteration  of  the  phenomena,  and  this  competency  to  so 
induce  changes  is  the  essential  of  causality,  and  which  we 
term  the  power^  or  the  efficiency  of  the  cause,  and  which  is 
the  causal  nexus^  as  notion  in  the  understanding,  for  con- 
necting the  successions  in  the  phenomena.  If,  then,  we 
sometimes  find  the  phenomena  in  the  substance-cause  and 
those  of  the  substance-source  to  be  together :  we  shall  still 
determine  that  to  be  cause  in  which  the  efficiency  is,  and  cog- 
nize it  as  necessarily  first  in  the  understanding-conception, 
though  both  may  appear  together  in  the  sense.  Thus  I  may 
first  perceive  a  vapor,  and  then  perceive  a  heat  as  phenom- 
enon of  the  notional  caloric  which  causes  the  vaj^or ;  and 
though  I  may  perceive  that  the  heat  and  the  vapor  are  toge- 
ther in  the  sense,  yet  inasmuch  as  I  determine  the  efficiency  to 
be  in  the  caloric  of  which  the  sensation  of  heat  is  phenomenon, 
I  judge  the  heat  to  be  truly  first  in  order  and  the  vapor  to 
succeed  it.  And  so,  moreover,  when  I  simply  perceive  vary- 
ing phenomena  in  some  source,  but  can  not  perceive  any 
phenomena  of  the  substance-cause,  the  determination  that 
there  is  an  efficiency  inducing  these  changes  in  the  source  is 
quite  sufficient  that  I  should  judge  some  substance-cause  to 
be  present,  although  it  does  not  manifest  itself  by  any  of  its 


A    PRIORI    PRIXCIPEES    IN    NATUBE.  273 

own  phenomena  in  the  sense,  but  only  to  the  understanding 
through  the  changes  which  it  is  effecting  in  the  source  of 
these  coming  and  departing  phenomena.  Thus,  I  may  per- 
ceive the  altered  phenomena  which  magnetism  is  effecting 
In  some  substance-source,  as  the  movement  and  disposition 
of  the  steel-filings  after  an  ordered  arrangement;  and  though 
no  phenomena  mark  the  presence  of  the  magnetic  substance 
in  the  place  where  the  steel-filings  have  been  arranging 
tliemselves,  yet  my  understanding  at  once  concludes  that 
some  permanent  space-filling  force  is  present,  and  that  the 
sharpening  and  perfecting  of  some  organic  sensibility  might 
be  sufficient  to  receive  its  content  as  a  sensation,  and  capaci- 
tate the  intellect  to  discriminate  and  construct  it  into  a  com- 
plete phenomenon.  In  my  understanding,  I  therefore  con- 
clude magnetism,  and  so  also  electricity,  galvanism,  and 
even  gravitation,  to  be  space-filling  forces,  although  they 
manifest  themselves  to  the  sense  in  no  other  way,  than  by 
the  altered  phenomena  which  they  produce  in  other  sub- 
stances. 

The  efliciency  in  any  substance-cause  may  be  conceived 
to  lie  in*  the  substance  as  an  inherent  property,  even  when  it 
is  not  in  combination  with  any  other  space-filling  force  as 
actually  inducing  changes  therein,  and  it  is  such  conception 
that  we  mark  by  the  term  latent  power^  implying  that  it 
would  induce  changes  were  the  occasion  given  for  its  com- 
bination with  some  other  substance.  We  thus  conceive  the 
steel  and  flint  as  possessing  the  latent  power  to  produce  the 
spark,  though  no  occasion  of  collision  has  occurred ;  yel 
ought  we  not  to  hold  such  notion  of  latent  power  to  be  thai 
of  cause,  but  only  that  on  occasion  of  their  combination  in 
collision,  there  would  be  cause,  viz.,  a  modification  of  the 

12* 


274       THE     U.NDEKSTAJs^DING    IX    ITS    IDEA. 

space-filling  force.  The  steel  and  flint  are  no  more  cause  for 
the  spark  than  a  chip  and  leather,  except  as  brought  in  com- 
bination ;  for  without  this  the  phenomenon  of  the  spark  can 
no  more  appear  in  the  sense  from  one  than  from  the  other. 

An  analysis  of  this  conception  of  Cause  will  also  expose 
some  important  distinctions  in  reference  to  occurring  events 
Avhich  are  often  very  confusedly  apprehended.  Thus,  when 
I  conceive  of  a  series  of  causes  and  effects  passing  on  in 
their  order,  and  some  phenomenon  extraneous  to  this  series 
and  not  at  all  accounted  for  in  it  comes  suddenly  in,  and  in- 
terrupts the  process  of  thinking  in  its  connections  as  going 
on  in  the  experience,  I  term  this  intruding  phenomenon  a 
casual  event,  and  perhaps,  as  if  surprised  by  it,  I  say,  it 
somehow  so  happened  j  or,  that  it  was  an  accident.  The 
meaning  is,  not  that  any  such  occurrence  has  come  without 
both  its  source  and  its  cause  as  space-filling  substance,  but 
that  its  connection  is  quite  in  another  series  of  cause  and 
effect  from  that  which  we  were  then  determining  in  an 
experience,  and  in  proportion  to  the  suddenness,  supposed 
disconnection,  and  difficult  explanation  of  the  intruding 
phenomenon  is  our  surprise,  and  the  mystery  in  which  we 
leave  the  casual  occurrence. 

When  we  follow  the  conception  of  connected  phenom- 
ena in  one  source  through  their  successions,  as  of  the  juice 
of  the  grape  through  its  successive  stages  of  fermentation, 
we  have  the  judgment  of  a  change  in  things.  When  we 
folloAV  the  conception  through  the  successions  of  a  series  of 
causes^  we  have  the  judgment  of  a  train  of  eve7its.  Thus, 
in  the  return  of  the  sun  from  the  winter  solstice,  and  the 
dissolving  of  the  snow  and  ice,  and  the  overflow  of  the 
streams,  and  the  deposition  of  organic  remains  upon   the 


A    PRIORI    PRINCIPLES    IN    NATURE.         275 

fields,  and   tlieir  increased  fruitfiilness,  and  the  augmented 
business,  wealth,  population,  etc.,  we  have  a  successive  com- 
ing  out  from  different  sources  of  new  phenomena  M'hich  we 
term  eveiits  ;  and  these  are  all  conditioned  in  their  order  of 
occurrence  by  their  series  of  causes,  and  we  therefore  say, 
that  they  occur  in  a  train.     These  successions  have  no  con- 
nection in  one  source,  but  the  phenomena  vary  the  substance 
in  wliicli  they  originate  with  every  step,  and  their  connec- 
tion is  only  through  a  varied  combination  of  substances,  of 
which  one  becomes  an  occasion  for  the  next,  and  thus  on- 
wai-d  through   all  the  efficiency  of  the  changes  by  their 
causes.     And  again,  when  we  conceive  the  antecedent  not 
as  the  efficient,  but  only  as  a  preparative  occasional  for  an 
efficient,  we  may  deem  both  the  occasional  and  the  efficient 
to   be  causes,  but  their  distinction  in  the  conception  must 
be  noted  by  some   qualifying   phraseology.     Thus   in  the 
overflow  of  the  streams  as  followins^  the  dissolvino;  of  the 
snow,  the  dissolving  is  only  a  preparative  occasional  for  and 
not  an  efficient  for  the  overflowing.    The  disengaging  of  the 
fluid  by  the  dissolution  of  the  congelation  prepares  the  way 
for  the  efficiency  of  gravitation  to  come  in  combination  and 
produce   the   overflowing;    and   then   this   overflowing   is 
again  a  preparative  occasional  for  the  deposit  of  its  sedi- 
ment, inasmuch  as  the  quiet  state  of  the  waters  which  en- 
sues permits  again  gravitation  as  an  efficient,  to  bring  the 
suspended  particles  to  the  bottom.     We  may  mark  this  dis- 
tinction by  calling  the  one  an  accasional  coAise^  and  the 
other  an  efficient  cause  ;  and  in  many  cases  such  distinction 
leads  to  very  important  philosophical  consequences.     The 
Did  scholastic  distinctions  are  not  unworthy  of  careful  pres 


276        THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

ervation ;  as  causa  causans^  causa  causata^  causa  efficiens, 
causa  sine  qua  non^  etc. 

This  clear  conception  of  Cause  gives  opportunity  for  a 
further  analysis,   by  which  still  more  important   a  pi'iori 
principles  in  a  nature  of  things  are  determined.     The  con- 
ception of  fate  is  that  of  a  cause  in  utter  blindness ;  compe- 
tent to  originate  effects,  and  yet  utterly  without  determina- 
tion of  what  the  effect  must  be.     It  is  a  blind  giant  in  its 
power,  irresistible  and  inexorable,   under  which,  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Stoic  become  the  highest  wisdom,  viz.,  that 
there  is  nothing  to  pray  for  and  nothing  to  pray  to ;  nothing 
to  be  feared  or  hoped ;  and  the  part  of  virtue  is  to  receive 
all  things  in  perfect  equanimity,  inasmuch  as  while  some- 
thing must  come,  there  can  be  no  possible  conditioning  of 
what  is  to  come.     The  cause  is  positive,  but  all  conditioning 
of  the  effect  in  the  cause  is  negative.     The  understanding 
has  simply  the  connective  of  efficiency,  and  therefore  it  may 
determine  that  one  thing  shall  make  changes  in  other  things, 
and  successions  of  phenomena  shall  flow  on ;  but  it  has  no 
connectives  forjudging  what  changes  shall  be  induced,  and 
thus  no  determination   of  what  phenomena  must  appear. 
But  if  we  will  here  analyze  our  conception  of  cause,  we 
shall  find  a  nature  of  things  no  more  admitting  of  Fate  than, 
as  above  seen,  of  Chance.     The  space-filling  force  as  sub- 
stance in  a  nature  of  things  already  is,  and  the  conception 
of  cause  is  the  efficiency  of  one  substance  in  combination 
with  others  to  induce  changes  therein,  and  thus  condition 
the  phenomena  which  must  appear  in  the  sense.     But  the 
given  combination,  from  the  inherent  forces  of  the  space- 
filling substances  as  cause  and  source,  can  produce  only  a 
given  modification,  and  thus  a  given  change,  and  thus  also  a 


A    PRIORI    PRINCIPLES    IN    NATURE.         2*7l 

given  phenomenon ;  and  every  change  must  also  be  condi- 
tional for  its  next  combination  of  substances,  and  thus  on- 
ward in  endless  development,  but  with  the  inherent  princi- 
ple in  every  succession  as  an  intestine  law  of  what  every 
subsequent  succession  must  be.  In  nature  there  can  no 
more  be  a  blind  fatality  of  result,  than  there  can  be  a  rest- 
ing of  causation.  Both  the  cause  must  go  out  into  effect^ 
and  must  go  out  in  such  eifect,  and  the  whole  is  given  in 
the  germ  as  truly  as  any  part  in  the  past  development. 
Causation  has  its  connections  in  intelligible  inherent  law, 
and  knows  nothing  of  a  blind  Fate,  which  would  annihilate 
all  function  of  an  Understanding  in  Experience. 

Again,  the  conception  of  liberty  is  that  which  may  pro- 
pose to  itself  as  cause  an  alternative  of  ends,  and  go  out  in 
its  agency  for  the  one  in  the  possession  of  an  efficiency  for 
its  alternative.  It  is  positive  of  agency  and  positive  of  con- 
ditions, but  as  having  an  alternative  of  conditions  it  is  neg- 
ative of  a  necessitated  order  of  effi^ct.  But  in  the  causation 
of  nature  an  alternative  of  conditions  is  an  impossibility. 
No  combination  of  space-filling  forces  can  induce  but  one 
modification  in  any  point  of  efficiency,  and  the  cause  must 
as  necessarily  go  out  into  its  own  conditioned  effect,  as  it 
must  go  out  in  effect  at  all.  In  Nature  there  can  be  no 
Liberty. 

And,  lastly,  the  conception  of  a  leap  in  nature  would  be 
that  of  passing  from  effect  to  effect  without  an  intermediate 
efficiency,  and  thus  in  one  stage  of  development  reaching  an 
advanced  position  without  passing  through  the  intermediate 
changes.  Such  a  conception  would  break  up  all  intelligible 
connection  in  uatur(^,  inasmuch  as  any  cause  Avhich  A\as  effi- 
cient for  other  than  its  own  effect  must  leave  all  intermedi 


2^8        THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

ate  effects  unconnected  by  any  cause.  Nature  would  have 
some  changes  which  were  not  connected  in  any  develop- 
ment of  nature.  A  nature  of  things  can  never  admit  of 
progress  per  saltum. 

3.  Action  and  Reaction. — This  is  another  pure  under- 
standing-conception, and  may  be  verified  in  an  objective 
reality  by  the  determination  of  an  experience  as  cotempora- 
neous,  or  as  occurrence  of  events  simultaneously.  A  clear 
conception  of  this  manner  of  connection  will  also  give  oc- 
casion for  a  further  analysis  by  means  of  which  some  other 
a  priori  principles  of  a  nature  of  things  may  be  obtained. 

The  conception  is  that  of  two  substances  in  combination 
or  collision,  which  can  not  occur  but  it  must  modify  the 
space-filling  force  through  every  point  of  the  space  filled. 
But  w^hile  such  modification  must  be  made  in  one  substance 
from  the  combination,  the  combination  must  as  surely  mod- 
ify the  other  substance,  and  thus  the  change  must  be  recip- 
rocal. And  this  is  not  merely  in  single  instances  of  combi- 
nation, but  inasmuch  as  all  of  a  nature  of  things  may  be 
determined  in  the  relations  of  one  space  and  of  one  time  in 
experience,  it  follows  that  all  things  as  coexisting  in  space 
and  time  must  stand  in  this  reciprocal  intercourse  and  com- 
munion each  with  each.  Were  some  one  substance  isolated 
from  all  reciprocity  with  all  other  substances,  it  could  not 
be  determined  as  in  the  same  universal  space  and  time  wdth 
other  things,  and  thus  could  not  stand  connected  in  the 
same  experience. 

This  mutual  commerce  between  all  portions  of  the  co- 
existing universe  gives  the  occasion  for  perceiving  the  phe- 
nomena of  different  substances  in  one  order  and  then  in  a 
reverse  order  of  perception.     If,  when   the  perception  of 


A    PRIORI    PRINCIPLES     1^     NATURE.         279 

oae  phenomenon  had  passed,  the  phenomenon  could  not 
agai  ii  be  repeated  in  the  sense,  it  would  indicate  that  the 
modification  in  the  substance  which  occasioned  it  had  also 
passed,  and  a  change  had  been  induced  which  must  now 
give  occasion  for  the  perception  of  some  other  phenomenon, 
and  such  succession  would  indicate  that  the  connections 
were  those  of  cause  and  effect,  and  could  not  admit  of  re- 
versed percejjtions,  inasmuch  as  all  occasion  for  the  prece- 
ding perception  had  wholly  passed  away.  But  w^hen  the 
apprehension  of  one  phenomenon  has  passed  and  another 
has  been  apprehended,  and  then  the  apprehension  of  the 
first  may  be  again  repeated  at  pleasure,  it  manifests  that  the 
occasion  for  such  phenomenon  remains,  and  the  order  of  ap- 
prehension each  way  is  the  index  that  the  connection  is  that 
of  recij^rocal  influence,  not  of  cause  and  effect.  When, 
therefore,  all  co-existing  things  reciprocally  influence  each 
other,  such  influence  gives  occasion  for  the  same  phenom- 
ena in  each,  so  long  as  the  modifications  of  any  one  does  not 
make  its  changes  in  all.  Thus,  when  the  presence  of  the 
sun  acts  and  re-acts  in  the  modifications  of  its  light  upon  all, 
my  perception  in  the  organ  of  vision  may  be  from  one  co- 
existing substance  to  another,  in  the  phenomena  thus  occa- 
sioned, and  in  a  reversed  order  of  apprehension  arbitrarily, 
and  I  determine  them  as  contemporaneous ;  but  when  the 
sun  is  withdrawn  and  such  action  and  reaction  ceases,  and 
jsuch  modifications  have  jDassed  away,  and  I  can  no  longer 
pass  in  my  apprehension  from  one  thing  to  another,  I  can  no 
longer  determine  their  contemporaneousness,  but  only  the 
successions  that  have  passed  since  they  all  disappeared. 

With   this   conception  of  the   reciprocity   of  influence 
throughout  nature,  and  that  no  one  thing  can  be  changed  in 


280        THE    irNDERSTANDING    IN    TTS    IDEA. 

its  modifications  but  it  has  been  acted  upon  by  all,  and  that 
thus  one  portion  of  nature  acts  through  every  other  portion 
while  every  other  portion  is  also  acting  through  it,  we  have 
the  analytical  judgment  a  priori,  and  thus  a  primitive  prin- 
ciple of  nature,  that  it  can  be  no  aggregation  of  particular 
things  which  are  merely  in  apposition  in  space ;  nor  yet  a 
mere  concatenation  of  various  series  of  things,  in  independ- 
ent lines  of  cause  and  effect ;  but  that  Avhile  all  have  a  per- 
petual source,  and  a  conditioned  order  of  succession,  this 
warp  of  all  hues  of  causation  is  also  woven  across  with  the  con- 
necting woof  of  reciprocal  influences,  and  thus  that  nature 
has  its  complete  contexture  which  may  be  held  as  one  web 
of  a  determined  experience,  and  which  no  more  adheres 
continuously  than  it  also  coheres  transversely. 

And,  lastly,  the  conception  of  a  vacuum,  is  of  a  space 
destitute  of  any  force  as  substantial  source,  cause,  or  recip- 
rocal influence.  It  is  the  negation  of  all  being,  and  the 
aflirmation  of  an  utter  vacuity  in  the  midst  of  nature.  And 
now  such  a  void  mny  be  supposed,  just  as  ideal  space  may 
be,  but  not  at  all  consistently  with  a  determined  experience 
in  space  and  time.  If  there  is  somewhere  a  rent  in  nature, 
which  causation  does  not  pass  through,  or  action  and  reac- 
tion pass  across  ;  then  can  not  that  chasm  of  vacuity  be  at 
all  determined  as  any  place  in  the  one  objective  space,  nor 
at»y  period  in  the  one  objective  time  ; ,  nor  can  the  threads 
that  may  run  along  in  it,  or  come  up  from  it,  be  possibly 
determined  as  in  the  same  one  v/hole  of  space  and  time  with 
cash  other.  The  understanding  has  no  connective  notion  by 
which  to  carry  its  thought  across  it,  and  once  to  sink  into 
it  would  be  to  lose  all  possibility  of  coming  out  of  it.  The 
functions  of  an  understanding  would  be  lost  in  it.     Nature 


A    PRIORI    PRINCIPLES    IN    NATURE.  281 

not  merely   iibhors    but  utterly  forbids,    within    itself,   a 
vacuum. 

With  the  phenomenal  as  sense-conception  already  given, 
we  may  now  completely  apprehend  the  Understanding  in 
the  entire  province  through  which  all  its  possible  functions 
may  operate,  and  in  this  w^e  have  attained  the  perfect  Idea. 
Phenomena  are  given  in  their  definite  but  also  isolate  singu- 
larity, and  1)0  possible  function  of  the  sense  can  connect 
them  in  an  experience  as  belonging  to  a  universal  nature. 
This  must  be  a  work  exclusively  for  an  understanding,  which, 
by  an  operation  of  connection  discursively  through  the 
notional,  holds  all  nature  to  be  one  concrete  of  universal 
being.  The  possibility  of  determining  the  phenomenal  in 
all  the  space  and  time-relations  affords  an  a  priori  distinction 
between  all  subjective  idealism  and  objective  being ;  for, 
except  as  phenomena  stand  connected  in  their  constant  sub- 
stance there  can  be  no  determination  of  them  in  the  one 
immensity  of  space,  and  except  as  they  stand  also  connected 
in  their  perpetual  source,  their  successive  cause,  and  their 
reciprocal  influence,  there  can  be  no  determination  of  them 
in  the  one  eternity  of  time.  A  determined  experience  in 
space  and  time  is  utterly  impossible  except  through  such 
connections.  The  media  of  space  and  of  time  give  the  occa- 
sion for  a  complete  demonstration  of  the  necessity  of  the 
notional  as  connective  for  the  phenomenal,  in  order  to  any 
possible  expeiience  determined  in  space  and  time. 

From  this  a  priori  demonstration  of  the  connection  of 
all  possible  experience  determined  in  space  and  time  through 
a  notional  as  the  being  of  things  in  themselves,  we  have  the 
ralid  synthetical  judgments  in  their  universality  and  neces- 
sity of  comprehension — that  qualities  must  inhere  in  their 


282      THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS     IDEA. 

substances — events  must  depend  on  their  sources — eftects 
must  adhere  through  their  causes — and  all  concomitant 
phenomena  must  cohere  in  their  reciprocal  influences — and 
thus  all  of  Nature  be  possible  to  become  an  experience 
determined  in  space  and  time.  A  perpetual  impenetrability 
Avill  indicate  the  being  of  Substance,  in  its  position  in  space 
and  duration  in  time ;  a  continual  and  irreversible  order  of 
apprehension  will  indicate  the  being  of  Cause  ;  and  an  order 
of  apprehension  reversible  at  pleasure  will  indicate  the  being 
of  Reciprocal  Influence.  An  Understanding  thus,  is  a 
faculty  for  connecting  phenomena  in  a  determined  experi- 
ence in  space  and  time,  through  the  notions  of  substance, 
cause,  and  reciprocal  influence.  The  complete  Idea  concisely 
expressed  is — The  Understanding  is  Faculty  for  a  univer- 
sally determined  Experience  in  the  connection  of  the  p?ie- 
nomenal  through  the  notional. 


SECTION    VI 


FALSE   SYSTEMS    OF   A   UNIVERSAL   NATURE   EXPOSED   EN 
THEIR   DELUSIVE   A    PRIORI   CONDITIONS. 

A  COMPLETE  idea  of  an  understanding  induces  at  once  a 
conception  of  the  true  Intellectual  System  of  the  Universe. 
Its  application  to  all  false  systems  will  enable  us  to  detect 
their  fallacies  at  the  very  point  of  their  departure  from  the 
conditions  of  the  understanding  itself,  and  thereby  to  trace 
their  self-contradictions  and  absurdities  to  the  source  in 
which  they  become  unintelligible.  It  will  be  the  conclusion 
of  this  first  Chapter  of  the  understanding  when,  in  this  sec- 


FALSE    SYSTEMS     OF    NATURE    EXPOSED.      283 

tion,  we  have  applied  our  idea  of  an  understanding  to 
several  erroneous  conceptions  of  a  Universal  System  of 
Nature,  and  thereby  exposed  their  fallacies  in  their  a  prion 
sources. 

From  the  earliest  history  of  philosophy,  we  find  the 
traces  of  a  very  earnest  conflict  perpetually  occurring  be- 
tween those  who  have  restricted  nature  wholly  within  the 
phenomenal,  and  those  who  have  aflirmed  a  notional  as  alto- 
gether beyond  the  region  of  the  phenomenal,  and  wholly 
supersensible.  The  authority  of  Plato  settles  the  great  anti- 
quity and  the  ardor  of  this  contest.  In  the  Sophista  he 
affirms  tha|;  "  there  seems  to  arise  among  them,  in  this  dis- 
pute concerning  being  a  kind  of  giant-battle."  Guest.  "  The 
one  party  from  the  heavenly  or  unseen  sphere  draw  all 
things  down  to  Earth,  just  as  the  old  giants  grasped  with 
their  hands  the  rocks  and  oaks.  Being  ever  in  contact  with 
such  things  as  these,  they  affirm  that  that  alone  which  offers 
touch  and  impact  is  real  being.  Hence  they  define  matter 
and  substance  as  the  same,  and  as  for  any  other  things, 
should  one  maintain  that  the  incorporeal  truly  ?s,  they 
despise  it  altogether  and  will  hear  to  nothing  of  the  kind." 

Theat.  "  Hard  fellows  these  of  whom  you  speak.  I 
think  I  have  met  with  some  of  them." 

Guest,  "  Therefore  it  is  that  those  who  contend  against 
them  are  very  careful  to  draw  their  armor  from  the  unseen 
sphere.  These  talk  of  "  intelligibles"  and  "  incorporeals," 
vehemently  maintaining  that  they  alone  are  real  being.  The 
"  corporenls"  of  the  other  class,  what  they  call  truth  and 
reality  (viz.,  their  rocks  and  oaks),  these  break  up  into 
atoms,  thus  showing  that  instead  of  being  entitled  to  the 
name  of  essence  or  substance  they  are  but  ever-flowing  and 


284         THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

changing  appearance.  Between  these  parties,  O,  Theatetus ! 
there  is  waged  a  war  that  knows  no  end."  Aristotle,  though 
philosophizing  more  concerning  the  phenomenal  than  the 
notional,  yet  no  less  explicitly  than  Plato,  teaches  an  essence 
supersensible;  separable  from  all  phenomena;  a  substance 
indissoluble  and  indestructible.  And  certainly,  this  ever- 
lasting battle  between  the  sensualists  and  super-sensualists 
can  never  be  composed  to  peace  except  by  an  d  ji>Hori 
science.  The  impossibility  of  an  experience  determined  in 
space  and  time,  except  as  the  phenomena  stand  connected  in 
their  grounds  and  sources  of  being  as  substance,  cause,  and 
reciprocal  agency,  must  be  demonstrated,  or  we  can  never 
fully  settle  the  controversy,  and  show  that  the  phenomenal 
is  the  mode  in  the  sense  of  that  which,  as  thing  itself,  is  the 
notional  in  the  understanding. 

But  this  idea  of  an  understanding  determining  experi- 
ence in  space  and  time,  is  much  further  available  for  the 
exposing  of  many  fallacies  and  philosophical  delusions  which 
have  very  much  multiplied  themselves  about  this  operation 
of  connecting  the  phenomenal  in  universal  judgments  by 
the  interposition  of  a  notion  in  the  understanding.  The 
great  difficulty,  as  before  noticed,  lies  in  the  verification  of  a 
synthetical  judgment.  This  is  readily  effected  in  all  cases 
where,  by  a  construction  of  the  conception,  we  can  bring  all 
its  relations  within  an  intuition.  But  when  we  are  to  judge 
of  existence  and  not  of  appearance/  of  things  and  not  of 
qualities  ;  of  inherent  connections  and  not  of  external  appo- 
sitions ;  all  construction  in  an  intuition  is  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. Our  philosophical  principle  can  not  be  made  a  mathe- 
matical axiom.  The  judgment  is  synthetical  but  necessarily 
discursive,  and  the  only  possible  method  for  verifying  its 


FALSE    SYSTEMS    OF    NATUEE    EXPOSED.      285 

validity  is  by  subjecting  it  to  the  demonstration,  that  the  con- 
nectives of  the  notional  are  a  necessary  condition  for  deter- 
mining all  experience  in  one  whole  of  space  and  of  time. 
In  this  we  have  the  true  and  complete  idea  of  an  under- 
standing. But  these  fallacies  and  delusions  have  originated 
from  a  method  of  philosophizing,  that  completely  excluded 
all  consideration  of  these  necessary  conditions.  The  nature 
of  a  discursive  synthetical  judgment  was  wholly  overlooked, 
and  thus,  instead  of  applying  all  the  force  of  an  a  priori 
intellectual  investigation  to  the  point  of  verifying  the  valid- 
ity of  the  notional  and  the  conclusions  in  the  judgments 
thus  connected,  there  has  arisen  the  various  attempts  to 
attain  to  a  Universal  System  of  Nature,  sometimes  by  an 
analytical  process ;  sometimes  by  an  arbitrary  generaliza- 
tion ;  sometimes  by  mere  assumption  on  the  ground  of  com- 
mon sense ;  and  sometimes  by  the  arbitrary  omnipotence  of 
divine  interpositions. 

The  delusions  we  would  here  seek  to  dispel  may  be 
found  in  the  ambiguity,  on  one  side,  of  using  the  phenome- 
nal as  if  it  were  a  valid  notional ;  or,  on  the  other  side, 
explaining  the  notional  in  its  use  by  only  the  characteristics 
of  the  phenomenal.  One  intellectualizes  the  phenomenon, 
and  then  philosophizes  as  if  this  were  a  true  notion  in  the 
understanding;  the  other  sensualizes  the  notion,  and  then 
proceeds  as  if  no  substratum  in  an  understanding  were  at 
all  necessary.  The  undei'standing  is  made  to  conjoin^  or 
the  sense  to  connect  /  and  from  these  opposite  fallacies,  phi- 
losophy has  been  involved  in  the  grossest  absurdities. 
Either  Atheism  or  Pantheism  must  be  the  conclusion  of  all 
such  processes  of  thinking  in  judgments,  and  it  may  be  one 
as  readily  as  the  other.     If  the  philosophy  elevate  the  phe- 


286        THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA 

nonienal  to  a  notional,  it  may  keep  out  of  sight  that  any 
supernatural  connective  is  wanted  ;  or,  in  the  manifest  emp- 
tiness of  all  thinking  without  a  verified  notional,  it  may  ar- 
bitrarily introduce  the  supernatural  simply  because  it  is 
wanted ;  yet  when  so  introduced  as  the  connective  in  na- 
ture, it  is  impossible  that  its  divinity  should  be  any  thing 
other  than  nature. 

It  is  not  a  little  amusing  to  watch  the  delusions  induced 
by  this  ambiguous  use  of  the  phenomenal  and  the  notional, 
from  the  position  we  have  noAV  attained,  and  see  how  the 
philosophy  is  forced  to  balance  itself  by  an  amphiboly,  in 
which  the  ball  is  made  to  play  from  hand  to  hand  according 
to  the  delusion  which  it  is  obliged  to  practice  upon  itself. 
We  will  pass  the  varieties  of  these  two  ambiguous  uses  of 
the  sense  and  the  understanding  before  us,  sufficiently  ex- 
tended to  detect  their  ever  recurring  fallacies  ;  and  this  not 
so  much  for  our  amusement  as  to  expose  the  ambiguity  and 
dispel  the  delusion  it  has  occasioned.  The  first  sublimates 
the  phenomenal  to  a  notional  in  the  understanding,  and  the 
last  degrades  the  notional  to  a  phenomenal  in  the  sense. 
By  keeping  this  examination  ever  within  the  light  of  our  d 
priori  Idea  for  all  possible  thinking  in  judgments,  the  de- 
tection of  the  deceptive  ambiguity  will  be  readily  effected. 

1.  The  general  process  of  physical  philosophy  where  the 
phenomenal  is  elevated  into  a  notional  for  the  understand- 
ing. 

The  common  conception  of  material  being,  as  the  start- 
ing point  for  philosophy  in  building  up  a  System  of  the 
Universe  under  this  general  process,  may  be  thus  described. 
The  material  world  as  given  in  vision  or  by  the  touch  is  an 
extension  in  space,  and  by  resistance  to  muscular  pressure 


FALSE    SYSTEMS     OP    N-ATURE    EXPOSED.    287 

is  apprehended  as  impenetrable  body.  This  extended  im- 
penetrable body  is  capable  of  successive  divisibihty  up  to 
the  primitive  particles  of  which  the  mass  has  been  com- 
pounded, and  such  particles  in  their  ultimate  analysis  are 
deemed  to  be  the  primitive  elements  of  material  nature. 
As  thus  uncompounded,  primitive  and  distinct,  they  are 
known  as  atoms.  The  phenomenal  has  m  these  atoms  dis- 
appeared, inasmuch  as  the  analysis  has  gojie  too  far  to  per- 
mit that  there  should  be  a  content  in  the  sense,  and  that, 
which  from  its  sublimation  has  passed  out  of  the  reach  of 
the  sensibility,  is  now  taken  to  be  valid  thing  in  the  thought. 
And  here  the  first  fallacy,  the  npcoTov  xpevdog,  is  found. 
This  sublimated  phenomenal,  as  having  passed  from  the  sen- 
sibility, is  no  longer  considered  to  be  phenomenal,  but  is  in- 
tellectualized  into  the  essential  being  of  matter  as  thing  in 
itself 

And  now,  wdth  all  matter  given  in  its  atomic  elements, 
the  labor  of  philosophically  accounting  for  its  combinations 
and  systematic  connections  commences.  How  are  these 
atoms  combined  in  a  body  ?  How  are  bodies  brought  into 
system  ?  How  are  systems  held  together  as  one  universe? 
Here  is  the  salient  point  for  many  diversified  modifications 
of  this  general  process  of  philosophizing.  A  few  of  the 
more  prominent  will  cursorily  be  noticed. 

(1.)  There  is  an  Atheistic  scheme,  according  to  w^hich 
an  attempt  has  been  made  to  build  up  a  system  of  N^ature, 
that  dates  far  back  among  the  earliest  annals  of  Grecian 
philosophizing,  assigned  to  such  names  as  Leucippus,  Demo- 
critus,  and  Protagoras,  but  which  can  hardly  claim  to  pos- 
sess more  than  a  semblance  of  systematic  philosophy.  The 
atoms  w^ere  assumed  to  have  not  only  position  and  hardness 


288        THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

but  weight ;  and  thus  a  fall  of  all  atoms  in  the  void  space 
gave  to  matter  an  original  motion  in  space.  With  these 
primordial  atoms  in  motion,  it  was  deemed  a  necessary  con- 
sequence that  resistances,  percussions,  collisions,  and  attri- 
tions should  ensue ;  and  thus  aggregations  of  atoms  would 
be  induced,  which  Avould  be  bodies  of  diverse  magnitudes, 
shapes,  and  movements  in  space.  And  inasmuch  as  such 
aggregations  must  take  to  themselves  some  position,  and 
stand  to  each  other  in  some  relationship  of  figure,  motion, 
density,  etc. ;  and  as  the  present  actual  composition  of  na- 
ture is  one  among  the  indefinite  number  of  possible  arrange- 
ments ;  it  is  only  required  that  we  admit  the  component 
atoms  to  have  come  together  as  they  have,  and  this  fortuit- 
ous concurrence  has  made  nature  what  it  is.  There  needed 
only  primitive  atoms  enough,  and  their  own  weight  put 
them  in  motion,  and  the  present  system  of  the  universe  has 
come  into  its  own  arrangement,  and  quite  as  readily  this  as 
any  othei*  among  all  possible  combinations. 

But  aside  from  all  questions  of  the  origination  of  the 
atoms,  and  of  their  diff*usion  through  the  void,  the  false  no- 
tional at  once  appears  in  the  assumption  of  weight  as  an 
inherent  property  of  the  atoms,  to  give  motion  to  them. 
The. weight  is  solely  phenomenal  in  the  sense,  but  is  surrep- 
titiously used  as  if  it  were  an  intrinsic  force,  and  thus  a 
notional  in  the  understanding.  The  deficiency  at  once  dis- 
closes itself  when  there  is  any  attempt  to  determine  from  it 
how  the  atoms  should  come  together,  and  how  when  aggre- 
gated they  can  have  any  cohesion. 

(2.)  Epicurus,  who  lived  amid  the  light  diffused  by  the 
Socratic  philosophy  and  the  physical  investigations  of  Aris- 
totle, modified  the  atomic  theory  of  Democritus  to  meet 


FALSE     SYSTEMS     OF     NATURE     EXPOSED.    289 

•some  very  manifest  difficulties.  He  assumed  the  atoms  to 
be  inmiutable  so  that  the  weight  and  motion  might  have 
permanency,  and  that  their  number  must  be  infinite,  or  in 
the  infinite  void  a  finite  number  must  become  dissipated  and 
lost  to  each  other  in  a  disorderly  movement.  The  void 
oifers  no  resistance  and  the  atoms  must  thus  be  precipitated 
with  equal  velocities  and  unvarying  direction,  and  hence  can 
no  more  come  into  conjunction  than  if  each  were  falling  in 
its  own  separate  tube.  Hence,  Epicurus  assumed  an  arbi- 
trary inner  energy  that  occasionally  made  slight  deviations 
from  an  even  and  perpendicular  fall.  These  arbitrary  de- 
flections aggregate  the  atoms  into  an  infinity  of  worlds  sim- 
ilar and  dissimilar  to  our  own,  and  amid  the  perpetual  col- 
liding, repelling,  and  rebounding,  Nature  comes  to  have 
combinations  of  form,  place,  and  motion  Avhich  now  belong 
to  it. 

Here  the  fiilse  play  of  the  weight  of  the  atoms  is  noticed, 
and  as  the  theory  stands  unbalanced  the  ball  is  changed 
into  the  empty  hand  to  restore  the  equilibrium.  The  weight 
is  solely  phenomenal  though  deceptively  used  as  a  notional 
and  when  the  philosophy  rests  upon  it  for  aggregating  the 
atoms,  the  whole  turns  awry,  for  the  phenomenal  weight 
has  no  conditioning  directory.  The  amphibolous  play 
gives  the  arbitrary  deflection  to  the  losing  side,  and  the  reel- 
ing thought  is  steadied  to  take  the  step  which  may  bring 
the  atoms  in  juxtaposition  in  divers  places  and  quantities 
Here  Epicurus  stopped  short;  but  a  next  attempt  for  a  dis- 
cursive judgment  must  have  repeated  the  delusion.  This 
arbitrary  deflective  energy  was  still  phenomenal,  like  the 
flickering  appearance  of  flame,  or  the  zigzag  motion  of  the 
lightning,  and  can  possibly  give  nothing  to  stand  under  our 

13 


290       THE    UXDEESTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

tliinking.  This  fixllacy  of  a  false  notional  might  everlast- 
ingly thus  delude  us,  and  we  abide  amid  only  the  construc- 
tions of  the  sense  though  assuming  to  conclude  in  the  phi- 
losophical judgments  of  the  understanding. 

(3.)  A  modification  of  the  use  of  the  phenomenal  for  the 
notional  is  found  in  the  physical  system  of  the  Stoics.  Zeno, 
Cleanthes,  and  Chrysippus,  were  the  most  noted  among  the 
founders  of  the  philosophy  of  the  Porch.  Heraclitus  flour- 
ished before  the  Socratic  Era,  but  many  of  his  principles 
and  conclusions  were  adopted  by  the  Stoics. 

The  incorporeal  essences  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  were 
rejected  by  the  Stoics,  and  all  true  being  was  held  to  lie  only 
in  the  corporeal.  This  was,  however,  made  more  compre- 
hensive than  the  atomic  aggregates  of  Democritus  or  Epi- 
curus. To  the  phenomenal  body  of  matter  was  ascribed 
both  a  passive  and  an  active  state.  The  weight  and  the 
inner  deflective  agencies  of  the  Epicurean  philosophers,  the 
Stoical  philosophy  ascribed  to  matter  in  its  active  state.  As 
abstract  generalizations,  a  vacuum,  place,  time,  and  merely 
logical  conclusions  were  incorporeal,  but  when  cognized  as 
definite  particulars  they  were  considered  to  be  corporeal. 
A  definite  cubic  foot  in  space  rested  permanently  in  itself 
and  was  thus  passive,  but  it  excluded  all  other  extension 
from  its  place  and  was  thus  active,  and  the  particular  pure 
place  was  thus  as  truly  body  as  the  empirical  content. 

The  analysis  of  the  phenomenal  matter  was  not  into  th 
indivisible  atoms,  but  into  its  quality  and  quantity.  The 
quality  was  passive  as  the  abiding,  and  the  quantity  was 
active  as  giving  to  itself  limits  and  shape.  The  phenomenal 
properties  were  themselves  body,  and  more  than  one  body 
might  occupy  the  same  place  at  the  same  time.     The  harcl- 


FALSE    SYSTEMS     OF    NATURE    EXPOSED.        291 

ness  of  a  cubic  inch  of  gold,  and  the  yellowness  of  it  were 
both  body,  having  content  and  form,  passion  and  action, 
and  yet  both  in  the  same  place  at  once.  The  analysis  was 
only  of  what  appeared,  but  this  as  both  content  and  form. 
The  content  was  the  passive  side,  and  the  form  the  active 
side,  the  first  was  matter  and  the  last  was  spirit.  But  both 
the  matter  and  spirit  were  in  the  one  body,  the  spirit  de- 
veloping bodily  form,  the  matter  being  developed  into  form. 
Thus  the  seed  can  not  be  developed  but  by  its  active  spirit, 
and  the  spirit  can  develope  nothing  except  as  in  a  material 
germ,  and  the  body  of  the  plant  has  both  matter  and  spirit, 
the  passive  and  the  active.  God  and  the  soul  are  spirit,  and 
in  their  activity  the  universe  and  humanity  are  developed 
in  bodily  form.  God,  as  the  informing  word  {aT,tp\ia~iKoq 
X6yo(^  of  the  universe,  must  reside  in  the  matter  of  nature 
which  He  develops  into  bodily  form,  and  in  this  constant 
development  there  is  perpetual  flow  and  change.  This 
active,  moreover,  works  in  the  passive,  and  in  this  non- 
resistance  there  can  be  no  conditioning  of  the  activity  for 
there  is  no  reciprocity  of  agency.  It  was  not  the  chance  of 
the  Epicurean,  as  a  deflective  phenomenon  w^ith  no  inherent 
efliciency ;  nor  the  proper  causality  of  two  modifying  no- 
tional substances ;  but  the  Stoical  Fate^  as  an  activity  with 
no  determining  conditions  to  guide  it. 

And  yet  such  a  peculiar  analysis  of  the  phenomenal  and 
its  results  brings  at  once  into  use  the  same  play  of  a  delusive 
notional.  Because,  in  constructing  form,  the  intellect  as 
constructing  agent  is  active,  it  is  here  assumed  the  phenom- 
enal form  is  bodily  activity,  and  this  is  assumed  to  give 
dynamical  connections.  But  so  soon  as  this  is  used  for  con- 
necting in  judgments,  the  false  notional  betrays  itself,  and 


292       THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

the  active  as  solely  phenomenal  must  agam  be  remanded  to  a 
further  activity  back  of  itself,  and  be  compounded  with  mat- 
ter. We  then  attempt  to  think  the  active  as  developing  the 
material  into  bodily  form,  but  at  once  we  lose  our  balance 
again,  for  the  matter  in  which  the  active  is,  and  on  Avhich  it 
is  to  work,  and  out  of  which  as  source  is  to  come  all  bodily 
forms  is  utterly  passive ;  a  negation  of  all  conditioning  of 
the  working,  and  leaving  the  active  as  mere  blind  Fate. 
But,  as  such  a  conception  negates  all  intelligence  and  anni- 
hilates the  understanding  itself,  the  speculative  Stoic  throws 
the  ball  once  more  back  and  makes  the  activity  as  spirit  to 
he  itself  moved  by  a  higher  activity,  and  which  is  but  the 
double  absurdity  of  making  fate  to  be  fated.  Here  the 
stoical  philosophy  rested,  on  a  blind  activity  unconditionally 
controlling  gods,  and  men,  and  nature.  There  was  a  blind 
power  back  of  the  universal  agent,  standing  behind  the 
throne  and  controlling  Jove  himself.  The  whole  was  a  vain 
attempt  to  think  in  the  sense,  and  make  discursive  judg- 
ments by  phenomenal  analyses. 

(4.)  Pythagoras  lived  more  than  a  hundred  years  before 
Socrates,  and  his  name  is  connected  with  the  earliest  sys- 
tems of  philosophy  extant.  It  is  quite  evident  that  he  had 
a  very  full  acquaintance  with  the  ancient  Egyptian  philoso- 
phy and  sciences,  and  may  perhaps  in  many  things  be  taken 
as  a  representative  of  the  Egyptian  method  of  thinking.  It 
is  only  from  the  writers  of  the  Pythagorean  school  who 
lived  immediately  precedent  to  the  time  of  Socrates,  that 
we  attain  a  knowledge  of  the  Pythagorean  doctrine ;  as  it  is 
evidently  from  these  that  Plato  and  Aristotle  drew  their 
descriptions  of  this  philosophy.    These  were  mainly  Ihilo- 


FALSE    SYSTEMS     OF    NATURE    EXPOSED.        293 

laiis,  Eurytus,  and  Archytas,  the  first  of  which,  more  espe- 
cially, gave  shape  to  the  Pythagorean  system. 

Their  whole  system  is  clothed  in  a  mathematical  garb, 
and  their  conceptions  of  things  are  expressed  in  the  formula 
of  numbers.  Their  first  principle  is  "  that  number  is  the 
essence  of  all  things ;"  and  as  all  numbers  have  their  com- 
binations, and  their  relations  in  such  constructions  in  a  gen- 
eral harmony,  and  also  express  the  relations  of  tones  and 
give  the  ratios  of  musical  intervals,  so  a  principle  nearly 
equivalent  to  the  above  was,  "  that  all  things  exist  through 
harmony."  But  the  real  meaning  clothed  in  this  mathemati- 
cal dress  is  all  we  now  need,  in  its  most  summary  form,  for 
the  purpose  of  detecting  anothei*  phase  of  that  delusive  am- 
phiboly before  noticed  between  the  phenomenal  and  the 
notional.  The  process  of  this  philosophy  was  wholly  analy- 
tical, but  in  a  different  direction  from  the  Atomists,  or  the 
Stoics  in  the  passive  and  active  of  bodies.  The  phenomenal 
alone  was  used  in  discursive  thinking,  and  which  must  have 
induced  for  synthetical  judgments  some  double  use  of  the 
phenomenal  as  a  spurious  notional ;  and  this  it  is  our  design 
here  to  expose.  The  analysis  proceeded  in  this  direction  ; 
taking  the  phenomenal  body  as  having  length,  breadth,  and 
thickness  in  space,  we  have,  as  a  first  analytical  result,  sur- 
faces ;  and  when  we  further  analyze  surfaces,  we  have  lines ; 
and  when  we  analyze  lines,  we  have  ultimately  points. 
Points,  as  the  ultimate  analysis,  are  atoms.  But  these 
atoms  or  points  are  only  limits,  and  not  limited.  In  order 
that  there  should  be  a  finite  or  limited  body,  there  must  be 
the  point  with  an  interval  terminated  by  another  point.  All 
bodies  are  thus  originally  points  and  intervals,  or  atoms 
separated  by  a  vacuum.     The  one  point  in  vacuo  is  an  atom; 


204         THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

two  points,  with  their  intervening  vacuum,  is  a  Une ;  three 
points  and  their  interval,  when  not  continuous,  is  a  surface ; 
and  four  points,  when  any  one  is  out  of  the  plane  of  the 
other,  is  a  solid.  Here  is  the  explanation  in  what  way,  "  the 
essence  of  things  is  number."  The  unit  is  an  atom ;  the 
dual,  a  line ;  the  triplicate,  a  surface ;  and  the  quadruple,  a 
solid.  Definite  numbers  are  also  given  for  cubes,  pentagons, 
hexagons,  etc. 

The  system  of  nature  is  constituted  of  these  elements  of 
atoms  and  intervals ;  i.  e.,  of  points  and  voids.  These  are 
the  ultimate  results  of  an  analysis  of  all  phenomena,  and  all 
being  is  thus  taken  as  compounded  of  atoms  and  the  voids 
interposed.  With  these,  the  philosophy  commences  to  con- 
nect its  system  of  universal  nature.  A  generalization  of  all 
atomic  being,  as  including  all  existence,  is  termed  the  One ; 
and  a  generalization  of  the  voids  includes  all  the  intervals 
interjacent  to  the  atoms,  and  which  is  known  as  the 
Inexistent.  The  first  One,  standing  in  the  infinite  void,  is 
known  as  the  Odd ;  and  assumed  as  spontaneously  tending 
to  a  self-limitation  by  an  inhaling  of  the  circumjacent  void 
within  itself,  which  is  called  the  inspiration  of  the  Infinite ; 
and  this  bringing  of  the  infinite  void  into  the  One  makes  it 
to  be  compounded,  extended,  self-conscious,  and  all-compris- 
ing ;  and  is  in  this  the  supreme  force  and  essence  of  the 
universe  now  called  the  odd-even — ^inasmuch  as  the  limit- 
ing atom  and  the  separating  interval  are  now  in  unity  within 
itself.  Here  now,  as  a  triad,  is  in  this  odd-even  the  capacity 
for  the  beginning,  the  middle,  and  the  end ;  and  as  thus 
including  the  entire  elements  of  being  it  becomes  the  All. 
The  All  is  now  competent  to  divide  and  separate  itself  inde- 
finitely by  inhaling  the  void  between  the  atoms,  and  thus 


FALSE     SYSTEMS     OF     NATURE     EXPOSED.       295 

extending  and  limiting  itself  and  thereby  distinguishing  in 
self-consciousness  ;  and  this  limiting  itself  in  its  distinct  and 
definite  portions  secures  that  it  becomes  Uranus,  or  the 
world.  The  diflferent  elements  of  nature — as  fire,  air,  earth, 
water — are  the  products  of  difierent  compounds  of  atoms 
and  intervals,  and  which  have  their  expression  in  numbers  ; 
and  the  arrangement  of  all  was  with  a  cube  or  a  pyramid  of 
fire,  as  the  altar  of  the  universe  and  the  watch-tower  of 
Jupiter,  at  the  center ;  and  from  which  goes  constantly  out 
the  flame  which  pervades  and  encloses  the  worlds,  and  con- 
stitutes the  grand  vortices  in  which  all  the  discriminated 
compounds  of  atoms  and  voids  are  kept  perpetually  moving 
about  in  their  orbits.  This  movement  was  after  the  law  of 
harmony,  and  supposed  to  be  attended  by  sounds  too  sub- 
lime for  mortal  ears  to  hear,  but  Avhich  to  the  gods  were  the 
perpetually  ravishing  music  of  the  spheres. 

Now,  without  inquiring  into  the  genesis  of  the  primary 
atoms,  and  Avhich,  by  inhaling  the  void  and  thereby  being 
rendered  capable  of  self-conscious  limitations,  become  mo- 
nads ;  and  not  at  all  seeking  the  validity  of  the  generaliza- 
tion, which  can  give  only  an  ideal  unity  to  the  atoms  as  the 
Supreme  One,  and  an  ideal  combination  of  the  one  existent 
and  the  infinite  inexistent  as  the  odd-even  or  the  all  ;  we 
only  need  to  trace,  in  the  light  of  the  true  idea  of  an  under- 
standing, the  ambiguity  here  involved,  and  all  the  delusion 
is  at  once  exposed  in  its  primary  sources.  The  atom  even 
as  generalized  to  the  universal  One,  is  but  the  phenomenal 
carried  beyond  all  perception  and  made  a  pure  intuition ; 
and  this,  taken  from  the  field  of  the  sense,  is  assumed  to 
have  entered  the  field  of  the  understanding  and  thereby  a 
mere  intuition  is  delusively  used  as  a  notion.     But  when 


296        THE     UNDERSTANDING     IN     ITS    IDEA. 

tlie  thinking  discursively  commences,  the  false  notional  has 
no  subsistency,  and  hence  to  save  the  fall,  the  ball  must  be 
thrown  into  the  empty  hand  as  a  higher  assumed  notional, 
which  is  a  force  seeking  after  a  self-conscious  limitation. 
The  atom  has  thus  an  inner  causation  which  moves  it,  and 
in  this  way  has  become  again  phenomenon,  and  the  inhaling 
or  self-limiting  energy  has  been  put  as  the  connecting  no- 
tional. But  this  again,  though  assumed  as  the  supreme 
governing  force  of  the  universe,  inasmuch  as  it  may  act  only 
upon  the  passive  void  which  it  inhales  into  itself  has  no  force 
nor  reaction,  and  thus  can  give  no  connection  to  the  atoms. 
So  soon  therefore  as  the  mundane  force  is  to  be  used  for 
connecting  the  combined  atoms  into  a  universe,  to  save  the 
fall  again  the  ball  must  be  thrown  forward  as  a  newly  as- 
sumed notional  in  the  vortices  of  the  central  fire  which  is 
made  to  pervade  the  spheres,  and  to  float  them  about  in  its 
gyrations. 

Here  the  Pythagorean  system  stops  short,  but  it  is  quite 
as  little  self-balanced  as  before  it  commenced  its  delusive 
philosophizing ;  for  the  next  step  upon  the  vortices  must  at 
once  make  them  to  be  as  truly  phenomenal  as  the  spheres 
which  they  carry  about,  and  we  must  still  seek  another  bal- 
ance-weight in  some  new  notional  which  shall  condition  tho 
gyrations  of  the  flaming  vortices.  The  philosophy  can  not 
be  completed,  because  an  analysis  of  phenomena  can  never 
supply  an  understanding-cognition,  as  true  notional  connec- 
tive. 

(5.)  Another  modification  of  the  atomic  theory,  to  pro 
vide  for  this  defect  m  the  impossibility  of  an  ultimate  analy- 
sis, is  eflected  by  Descartes  ;  and  would  fill  up  the  void  in 
the  notional  by  at  once  interposing  the  supernatural.     The 


FALSE    SYSTEMS     OF    NATURE    EXPOSED.    29V 

outline  of  the  Cartesian  physical  philosophy  is  as  follows : 
Material  being  has  its  essence  in  extension.  All  external 
phenomena  are  in  some  way  qualities  of  extension,  and  thus 
only  different  modes  of  extended  being,  while  the  simple 
extension  itself  is  the  sole  essence.  This  indefinite  exten- 
sion, as  the  original  essence  of  the  material  universe,  is  sepa- 
rable and  moveable,  and  therefore  capable  of  a  division  into 
definite  parts.  The  first  modification  of  material  essence 
was  the  breaking  up  of  this  indefinite  extension  into  angular 
portions,  and  which  in  the  movement  of  their  breaking  up 
pressed  against  and  were  made  to  grind  upon  each  other, 
and  this  attrition  rounded  the  fractured  parts  into  small 
spherical  atoms.  Interposed  between  these  small  spherical 
atoms,  was  every  where  the  still  finer  dust  which  worked 
off  in  the  grinding.  This  finer  dust  is  the  first  component 
element  of  nature,  and  the  spherical  atoms  are  the  second 
element. 

The  original  disruption  of  the  mass  and  the  consequent 
concussions  occasioned  whirls  and  eddies,  in  which  the  finer 
dust  of  the  first  element  was  carried  about  in  different  vor- 
tices ;  and  this  prepares  the  way  for  the  philosophical  con- 
nection of  the  elements  into  a  system,  and  which  is  thus 
effected.  The  fine  dust  of  the  first  element,  in  its  exceeding 
minuteness,  thus  whirling  about,  naturally  tends  in  its  motion 
toward  the  foci  of  the  vortices  in  which  it  is  carried  around, 
and  is  thus  subtracted  from  the  matter  of  the  second  ele- 
ment, leaving  the  spherical  atoms  diffused  through  the  heav- 
ens, and  which,  as  thus  cleansed  from  all  the  floating  dust, 
become  the  medium  of  light.  The  first  element,  so  far  as 
carried  int"  tliefoci  of  the  vortices,  becomes  there  condensed 
and  steadfast  in  position  except  as  turning  about  its  own 

13* 


298       THE     UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

center,  and  thus  constitutes  the  different  suns  of  the  differ- 
ent vortical  systems.  And  yet  very  much  of  this  fine  mat- 
ter of  the  first  element  tended  to  cohere  ere  it  reached  the 
centers  of  the  vortices,  and  such  incipient  coherences  be- 
come a  third  element,  more  dense  than  the  spherical  atoms 
of  light  as  the  second  element,  and  according  to  its  different 
densities  came  together  in  masses  at  different  points  in  the 
vortices  from  the  suns  at  the  center,  and  formed  the  planets 
and  comets  as  they  are  carried  about  in  their  respective  sys- 
tems. In  process  of  time  the  larger  vortices  absorbed  the 
smaller  and  controlled  them  in  its  own,  and  the  satellites 
while  carried  about  their  primaries  were  all  carried  about 
in  the  great  solar  vortex ;  and  thus  our  solar  system,  and  in 
like  manner  all  other  systems  of  the  universe,  became  com- 
pletely established  in  their  bodies  and  their  revolutions. 

And  now,  all  this,  as  in  the  Pythagorean  system,  is 
wholly  phenomenal,  so  far  as  the  being,  figure,  arrangement, 
and  revolution  of  the  material  world  is  considered.  Exten- 
sion is  solely  a  sense-conception,  and  thus  the  very  being  of 
matter  is  given  only  in  the  sense,  and  the  understanding 
supplies  no  notional  at  all  as  a  connective.  The  Cartesian 
philosophy  can  know  nothing  of  substance  and  cause  as 
space-filling  force  existing  in  nature,  and  even  the  negative 
of  substance  as  a  vacuum  is  an  impossible  conception.  Des- 
cartes thus  reasons  against  the  possibility  of  a  vacuum — that 
if  there  were  any  such  thing  it  might  be  measured,  and  all 
measure  implies  extension,  and  all  extension  is  essential  mat- 
ter, and  thus  no  vacuum  can  be.  And  in  this,  precisely,  is  its 
peculiarity.  Altogether  unlike  the  Pythagorean  philosophy, 
when  it  has  analyzed  the  phenomenal  and  found  its  highest 
analytical  predicate  in  the  conception  of  extension,  and  de* 


FALSE    SYSTEMS     OP    NATURE    EXPOSED.    299 

nied  that  any  extension  caTi  be  a  void  but  must  be  mateiial 
essence,  and  thus  wholly  phenomenal ;  it  does  not,  like  that, 
attempt  to  sublimate  the  phenomenal  into  a  notional.  Des- 
cartes had  already  provided  for  such  want,  in  beforehand 
preparing  for  himself  a  connnective  wholly  supernatural, 
and  which  allowed  that  he  should  utterly  dispense  with  all 
function  of  an  understanding,  and  connect  directly  by  the 
reason.  The  phenomenal  is  held  together  not  through  sub- 
stance and  cause,  but  immediately  by  the  Deity.  Indeed, 
that  the  phenomenal  can  at  all  be  known  to  be,  dejDends 
upon  ha  ing  first  demonstrated  the  spiritual  to  be ;  and  all 
physical  science  originates  in  the  previous  science  of  Theol- 
ogy. This,  so  peculiar  a  method  of  building  up  a  nature  of 
things  by  makings  its  whole  connective  supernatural — and 
yet  in  such  a  way,  as  we  shall  see,  that  an  amphiboly  intro- 
duces its  delusive  play  in  another  form  though  as  really  as 
in  any  of  the  preceding  which  has  been  noticed — demands 
that  we  carefully  examine  it,  and  be  able  to  make  a  fair  ex- 
position of  its  fallacies. 

Cartesianism,  then,  begins  in  universal  doubt,  and  seeks 
for  a  first  verified  truth.  In  this  very  casting  about  for 
what  may  dispel  all  doubt,  there  is  an  action  which  may  be 
called  thought;  and  in  this  very  thinking,  there  is  an  awak- 
ing in  self-consciousness.  Thus,  in  the  thought  itself,  the 
mind  becomes  cognizant  of  its  own  being.  Here,  then,  is 
the  first  truth  for  all  possible  science — I  think,  and  in  think- 
ing I  cognize  my  own  existence.  "  Cogito  ergo  sumP 
Having  thus  the  existence  of  mind,  and  having  found  that 
this  mind  has  many  thoughts,  which  are  named  all  as  alike 
ideas,  it  makes  clearness  and  distiiictness  the  criterion  of  the 
\ruth  of  our  ideas ;  and  then  finds  this  one  grand  idea  as 


300      THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

more  obtrusive,  absorbing,  and  unavoidable  in  the  clearness 
of  its  presence  than  all  others,  viz.,  an  all-perfect  Infinite 
Being.  Such  an  idea,  so  controlling  and  necessary,  could 
not  be  in  the  mind  from  the  mind  itself  nor  from  any  other 
source,  except  as  it  originates  in  the  actual  existence  of  this 
all-perfect  Being  himself  The  prominence,  clearness,  and 
necessity  of  the  idea  of  a  God  is  proof  a  priori  of  the 
actual  existence  of  a  God.  Thus  the  thinking  soul  is,  and 
God  is. 

And  now  the  sense  gives  us  an  outer  world ;  but  the 
sense  can  verify  nothing,  and  only  make  phenomena  to 
appear.  But  we  have  already  cognized  an  all-perfect  Being, 
and  His  veracity  must  be  manifested  in  His  works.  The 
outer  world,  therefore,  exists,  or  God  has  falsified  His  own 
veracity  in  making  man  the  subject  of  perpetual  and  help- 
less deception.  The  truth  that  the  outer  world  is,  rests 
upon  the  truth  that  God  is,  and  that  His  works  do  not 
deceive.  In  this  way  we  come  to  the  demonstration  of  an 
outer  world  as  phenomenal  reality.  This  outer  world  is 
then,  in  the  last  analysis,  found  to  be  extension ;  and  this, 
as  the  essence  of  all  matter,  is  brought  into  its  present 
arrangement  as  system  of  the  universe,  according  to  the 
foregoing  process  of  the  atoms  in  the  vortices. 

Thought  is  the  Cartesian  essence  of  mind,  and  extension 
that  of  matter,  and  in  these  is  included  all  possible  being. 
They  are  utterly  unlike,  and  can  have  no  reciprocal  com- 
munion with  each  other.  No  connection  is  to  be  thought 
between  them,  as  if  one  could  act  upon  or  be  affected  by 
the  other.  The  essence  of  matter  is  wholly  inert ;  thought 
only  is  active.  And  in  this  is  the  provision  made  for  all  the 
dynamical  connections  in  nature.     The  breaking  up  of  the 


FALSE    SYSTEMS     OF    NATURE    EXPOSED.    301 

mert  essence  of  matter,  the  attrition  into  the  first  and  second 
elements,  the  vortical  revolutions  and  the  connections  of 
finite  mind  with  matter,  are  all  resolved  into  the  immediate 
interposition  of  the  Deity.  The  doctrine  of  "  Divine  Assist- 
ance "  is  made  to  account  for  all  the  movement  and  changes 
of  nature. 

And  here,  so  far  as  the  physical  connection  of  the  phe- 
nomenal universe  is  regarded,  this  philosophy  has  the  merit 
of  a  logical  consistency.  It  does  not  as  in  the  preceding, 
attempt  by  an  analysis  of  material  phenomena  to  attain  a 
notional  in  the  understanding,  by  which  to  connect  into  a 
judgment  a  nature  of  things.  The  connective  is  supplied 
in  another  manner,  and  the  supernatural  is  immediately  in- 
troduced as  the  constituting  force  on  which  a  system  of 
nature  depends.  But,  though  not  in  the  same  direction  as 
in  the  former  theories,  yet  still  from  another  quarter  a  simi- 
lar ambiguity  is  introduced,  and  a  delusion  is  effected  which 
is  to  be  dispelled  by  applying  the  true  idea  of  an  under- 
standing. The  false  notional  is  not  at  all  attempted  from 
the  material,  but  is  derived  from  the  spiritual  phenomenon. 
The  whole  Cartesian  philosophy  founds  upon  Thought,  as 
its  first  given  fact.  The  phenomenon  of  thinking  induces 
consciousness,  and  this  is  made  evidential  of  a  self,  or  an 
Ego,  which  thinks.  That  I  have  self-consciousness  in  think- 
ing is  taken  as  valid  that  I  have  in  this,  myself,  as  notional 
subject  of  thinking.  Self-consciousness  is  sublimated  into 
an  understanding  cognition  of  a  permanent  substance,  as 
the  causal  source  of  thought.  Here,  then,  is  the  first  decep- 
tive ambiguity.  The  thinking  in  consciousness  is  wholly 
phenomenal ;  and  an  analysis  of  the  exercise  in  the  thinking 
and  of  the  thought  as  product,  and  one  put  as  the  subjeo- 


.H02        THE    UNDEESTANDING    IN    ITS     IDBA. 

tlve  and  the  other  as  the  objective,  deludes  into  the  convic* 
ti&n  that  the  supersensiial  subject  Ego  is  truly  attained. 
Ani  then  the  speculation  is  still  further  advanced,  that  inas- 
mu  ih  as  the  analysis  of  the  subjective  can  be  carried  no 
lag  her,  therefore  the  Ego,  as  soul,  is  simple,  indivisible,  and 
iini  lortal. 

But,  inasmuch  as  the  soul,  which  is  thus  surreptitiously 
:.ss timed  as  the  understanding  cognition  and  permanent 
ivofional  source  for  all  thinking,  can  be  source  only  for  the 
thinking  as  inner  phenomenon,  and  not  at  all  source  for  the 
]  h  3noraena  of  an  outer  world,  and  therefore  no  knowledge 
cf  a  nature  of  things  can  be  attained  through  such  connec- 
ti(  -ns ;  the  philosophy  returns  to  the  phenomenal  thought, 
ar  d  demonstrates  the  being  and  connections  of  an  outward 
nr.ture  of  things  by  another  and  entirely  independent  pro- 
cess. One  thought  as  product  is  separated  in  an  analysis 
from  the  thinking  as  intellectual  activity,  and  because  it  is 
nore  prominent,  absorbing,  and  necessary  than  all  others,  is 
tr<ken  to  be  more  distinct  and  clear  than  any,  and  on  this 
a.^count  the  most  true  and  valid  of  any,  viz.,  that  of  an  All- 
Perfect  Being ;  and  in  this  assumed  validity  of  existence 
f/om  the  necessity  of  the  idea,  the  being  and  perfections  of 
God  are  considered  as  a  priori  demonstrated.  The  phenom- 
enal in  the  inner  sense  is  made  available  here,  not  merely  for 
a  notional  source  of  thinking,  as  self  ox  soul,  but  taking  the 
though,  as  product,  is  made  available  for  attaining  immedi 
ately  the  supernatural  as  substantial  ground  for  the  thoi*ght; 
and  the  phenomenal  is  at  once  elevated  to  the  divine.  The 
sense  is  made  to  perform  the  functions  of  the  reason. 

But  inasmuch,  again,  as  the  philosophy  needs  only  a 
physical  substratum  and  connection,  so  this  Deity,  assumed 


FALSE  SYSTEMS  OF  :N-ATUKE  EXPOSED.   303 

to  be  from  the  clearness  of  the  thought  of  the  All-perfect,  is 
used  only  as  philosophical  source  for  constituting  a  universal 
system  of  nature,  and  degraded  to  a  mere  physical  force,  as 
cause  in  an  understanding  cognition,  for  breaking  up  the 
original  essence  somehow  unaccountably  generated,  and 
grinding  it  into  its  atomic  elements,  and  whiling  the  subtle 
vortices  which  are  to  shape  all  things  in  their  individual 
forms  and  systematic  revolutions.  While  avoiding  the 
absurdities  of  attaining  its  false  notional  connectives  from  a 
sublimation  of  the  outer  phenomena,  it  runs  into  even  more 
gross  fallacies  and  violent  subreptions,  in  attempting  delu- 
sively to  attain  its  notional  connectives  wholly  through  a 
sublimation  of  the  i7i?ier  phenomena.  The  ambiguity  of  the 
phenomenal  for  the  notional  is  the  same  as  in  the  former 
theories  examined,  and  the  fallacy  heightened  in  absurdity  by 
elevating  the  phenomenal  immediately  to  the  supernatural, 
and  then  degrading  the  divinity  of  the  supernatural  to  the 
bondage  and  perpetual  servitude  of  the  natural.  The  Deity 
is  needed  only  for  holding  nature  to  its  place. 

Malebranche  simply  carried  forward  Cartesianism  to  its 
ultimate  results,  without  the  addition  of  any  important  new 
principle  ;  and  the  necessity  for  supernatural  interpositions 
in  nature  became  with  him  a  completed  doctrine  of  "  Occa- 
sional causes,"  and  the  vision  of  all  things  in  the  Deity,  and 
a  resting  of  all  evidence  of  the  reality  of  an  outer  world 
upon  divine  Revelation. 

(6.)  Spinoza  so  far  modified  this  philosophy  in  its  founda- 
tion-principles as  to  make  indeed  a  new  system  of  the  phy- 
sical universe.  The  two  essences  of  thought  and  extension 
which  had  been  conceived  as  so  heterogeneous  that  they 
could  not   come  into   communion,   and   hence    demanded 


304       THE    UNDERSTAI3DING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

supernatural  interpositions,  were  by  Spinoza  generalized 
and  identified  in  a  higher  essence,  which  was  assumed  as 
ultimate,  indivisible,  and  eternally  immutable,  and  thus  the 
Absolute  Substance.  God  is  not  a  personality,  acting  accord- 
ing to  the  imperatives  of  reason  in  vnew  of  final  ends ;  but 
a  simple  essence,  in  the  absoluteness  of  its  own  being 
developing  a  nature  of  things  in  the  perpetual  unfolding  of 
itself.  Extension  and  thought  are  nierely  analytical  concep- 
tions of  this  infinite  substance  in  which  they  are  identical. 
The  absolute  essence  is  both  infinite  thought  and  infinite 
extension,  and  thus  all  mind  and  all  matter  are  but  the  modi- 
fied development  and  modes  of  existence  of  the  All-Perfect 
Being.  A  supernatural  interposition  is  not  needed  to  con- 
stitute and  hold  together  a  nature  of  things  ;  the  supernatu- 
ral is  developed  into  nature  itself.  An  unfolding  Deity  is 
the  universe. 

And  here  Spinozism  is  unquestionably  more  philosophi- 
cally consistent  than  Cartesianism.  It  does  not  attempt  to 
explain  nature  by  getting  a  supernatural  d  priori  to  it,  and 
then  absorbing  all  of  nature  in  this  supernatural ;  but  entirely 
reversing  the  process,  it  goes  through  nature  up  to  the  abso- 
lute substance,  and  then  accounts  for  nature  by  evolving  it 
from  the  absolute.  Both  may  be  termed  Pantheistic ;  but 
Descartes's  God  is  difiiised  as  causality  through  nature,  and 
Spinoza's  God  is  the  substance  which  in  its  own  development 
becomes  nature.  But,  in  this  last,  there  is  the  same  ambig- 
uous use  of  the  phenomenal  for  the  notional — a  delusive 
substitution  of  the  functions  of  the  sense  for  the  functions 
of  the  understanding — and  thus  attempting  to  think  in  dis- 
cursive synthetical  judgments  with  no  valid  medium 
through   which   to   make   the   discursus,  and  therefore  no 


FALSE     SYSTEMS     OF     NATURE    EXPOSED.      305 

valid  connection  in  which  to  legitimate  the  conclusion  in  a 
iudgment. 

The  thought  and  extension  are  simply  the  sublimations 
of  the  phenomenal,  and  not  at  all  a  vahd  notional  supplied 
in  the  understanding ;  and  instead  of  vainly  attempting  to 
think  them  into  a  nature  of  things  by  the  interposition  of 
whirling  vortices,  which  again  are  but  interpositions  of 
supernatural  agency,  the  attempt,  equally  as  vain,  is  made 
to  think  them  into  connection  by  a  higher  sublimation  of 
the  phenomenal,  and  assuming  it  to  be  a  valid  substance  as 
notion  in  the  understanding,  and  then  arbitrarily  educing  a 
nature  of  things  from  it,  merely  by  a  development  of  it.  Let 
it  be  demanded  to  think  in  a  judgment  a  connected  order 
for  this  development,  and  all  the  philosophy  of  Spinoza  is 
wholly  impotent.  It  will  then  require  a  further  sublimation 
of  this  assumed  notional  as  absolute  substance,  and  which  iii 
no  more  space-filling  force,  as  substance,  cause,  and  reciprocal 
influence,  than  the  phenomenal  thought  and  extension  them 
selves.  It  stops  with  this  assumed  substance,  but  it  is  a 
mere  delusive  stopping-place ;  for  philosophy  as  much 
demands  an  intelligent  development  of  nature  in  a  condi- 
tioning source,  as  a  resting  of  nature  upon  an  ultimate  sub- 
stance. Only  a  true  idea  of  an  understanding  verifying  its 
notional  in  a  determined  experience  in  the  space  and  time- 
relations  can  do  this. 

(7.)  The  genius  of  Leibnitz,  penetrating,  powerful,  and 
comprehensive  beyond  that  of  most  philosophers,  appre- 
hended clearly  the  difficulties  in  the  Cartesian  system,  and 
that  they  w^ere  still  left  unresolved  in  all  the  modifications 
of  Spinozism ;  and  in  a  manner  evincive  of  the  superiority 
of  his  intellect,  he  set  himself  to  work  a  reformation  in  the 


306      THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

very  first  principles  of  this  philosophizing.  But,  manifestly, 
from  the  want  of  a  true  idea  of  an  understanding  in  its 
operation  of  discursive  connection,  he  only  modified  the  sys- 
tem, but  did  not  at  all  change  the  order  of  the  thinking.  It 
is  still  an  attempt  to  sublimate  the  phenomenal  to  a  notional, 
and  to  think  a  universal  connection  in  a  nature  of  things  by 
only  notionalizing  the  phenomenal.  The  acuteness  and  fer- 
tility of  his  mind  is  astonishing,  but  in  the  absence  of  the 
true  light,  it  only  changed  the  point  of  the  delusive  ambig- 
uity, and  still  retained  all  the  false  play  of  the  deceptive 
amphiboly  before  noticed. 

The  grand  difficulty  in  the  Cartesian  system  was  the 
inertness  of  all  physical  essence.  Causation  could  nowhere 
be  used  as  a  connective  in  nature  itself,  but  must  every 
where  be  superinduced  upon  nature,  and  thus  perpetually 
demanding  the  supernatural.  Nor  did  Spinoza's  generaliza- 
tion of  all  thought  and  extension  into  the  different  modes 
of  one  assumed  absolute  substance  help  this  difficulty.  It 
gave  a  specious  unity  to  nature,  but  provided  for  no  intelli- 
gible exposition  of  the  successive  on-going  in  the  changes  of 
nature.  A  substantial  ground  was  assumed,  but  because  it 
was  only  a  sublimation  of  the  phenomenal,  it  could  give  no 
understanding-cognition  of  force  as  a  cause  for  change  in  a 
space-filling  substance,  and  which  might  thereby  condition 
an  alteration  of  the  phenomena  in  the  sense.  This  deficiency 
was  to  be  supplied,  and  somehow  the  notion  of  causality 
introduced  into  nature.  This  is  the  leading  interest  in  the 
Leibnitzian  physics,  and  the  stand-point  from  whence  to  take 
an  examination  of  this  philosophy ;  and  yet  we  shall  find 
this  causality  to  be  merely  an  intellectualizing  of  the  sense, 


FALSE     SYSTEMS     OF     NATURE     EXPOSED.      307 

though  with  much  ingenuity,  and  giving  much  plausibility 
to  the  follacy. 

The  analysis  of  matter  which  Leibnitz  assumed  to  be 
always  given  to  us  compounded,  was  the  first  step,  and  from 
this  the  atomic  theory  was  necessarily  ado[)ted.  The  last 
analysis  attained  to  an  indivisible,  indissoluble  portion  ;  and 
this  atom,  as  thus  wholly  unextended  and  impossible  to 
come  under  any  outward  determination,  can  only  be  distin- 
guishable from  other  atoms  in  virtue  of  something-  within 
itself.  Hence  the  principle  of  "the  indistinguishable"  in 
matter  by  any  thing  external.  But  changes  are  perpetually 
occurring  in  the  atoms,  and  some  "  sufficient  cause"  is  to  be 
found  for  them ;  and  as  this  can  not  be  from  any  outer  condi- 
tioning, but  must  be  determined  from  the  inner,  and  tlie  inner 
can  have  nothing  of  extension  or  composition,  so  nothing  is 
left  but  that  it  must  be  distinguishable  in  virtue  of  its  inher- 
ent energy.  A  sort  of  representation-force,  analogous  to 
that  which  is  an  inherent  property  of  mind,  must  be  pos- 
sessed by  all  atoms,  and  in  the  modifications  of  this  only 
can  one  atom  be  determined  as  distinguishable  from  all 
others.  Thus,  the  atoms  are  not  inert  and  passive,  as  with 
Democritiis  and  Descartes,  but  possess  an  inherent  energy 
as  power  of  inward  representation,  and  in  virtue  of  this 
inner  causality  they  are  not  dead  atoms,  but  monads.  Each 
has  its  own  particular  representation-force,  and  in  this  is  its 
principle  of  identity ;  and  as  each  also  is  competent  from 
this  inner  energy  to  represent  all  others  within  itself,  every 
monad  is  competent  to  become  a  little  world  in  itself  and  is 
"  a  microcosm."  Some  monads  have  their  inner  representa^ 
tion-force  in  utter  unconsciousness,  and  are  the  elements  of 
material  nature;   others  are  partially  awakened  into  con* 


308       THE    UNDEESTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

sciousness,  and  have  indistinct  representations,  and  aro  the 
elements  of  animal  spirits  ;  and  others  again  have  this  inner 
energy  developed  into  full  and  distinct  consciousness,  and 
are  the  elements  of  the  rational  human  soul.  God  is  the 
ABSOLUTE  MONAD ;  and  His  existence,  we  are  forced  from  the 
laws  and  conditions  of  all  thought  to  admit,  and  He  stands 
as  "  sufficient  reason"  for  the  existence  of  all  others.  Thus, 
the  elements  for  an  intellectual  system  of  the  universe,  all 
stand  ready  for  a  philosophical  putting  of  a  nature  of  things 
together. 

In  this  particular  possession  of  inner  representation- 
energy,  the  whole  must  give  all  possible  phases  of  being, 
and  in  such  universality  of  representation  there  must  be 
"perfection."  Inasmuch  as  essential  monadic  being  can 
have  no  determined  external  relationship,  but  only  inner 
representation,  so  space  can  be  no  a  priori  condition  of  na- 
ture, but  wholly  consequential  upon  its  being  and  represen* 
tation.  The  representation-force  is  first,  and  space  is  pro- 
duced in  the  representation — as  if  to  the  mirror  there  was 
no  outer,  then  the  mirror  must  first  be,  and  the  represented 
space  consequently  produced  within  it.  In  such  production 
of  space  there  is,  of  course,  occasion  given  for  the  position, 
figure,  and  relative  bearings  of  all  that  the  monad  shall  en- 
visage ;  and  this  in  the  case  of  all  monads ;  and  thus  all 
things  appear  in  space.  But  how  is  it  that  the  relations 
correspond  in  time  ?  The  energizing  causality  is  Avholly 
inward,  and  not  that  one  monad  can  act  outwardly  upon 
another ;  how,  then,  shall  their  separate  and  individual  repre- 
sentations conform  each  to  each  ?  This  demanded,  not  the 
"  the  occasional  causes  "  of  Cartesianism  which  would  re- 
quire a  perpetual  interj^osition  for  each  case,  but  an  original 


FALSE    SYSTEMS     OF    NATURE    EXPOSED.    309 

arrangement  which  should  harmonize  all  in  their  representa- 
tions forever.  And  here  is  introduced  the  doctrine  of  "  a 
preestablished  harmony,"  in  which  all  monadic  representa- 
tion-forces, as  so  many  mirrors  each  repi'esenting  the  state 
of  all  the  others,  are  made  to  tally  precisely  each  with  each. 
The  entire  universe  of  conscious  and  unconscious  monads 
thus  go  on  in  their  inner  causal  representations,  not  from 
any  community  of  influences  reciprocally  among  themselves, 
but  orderly  and  successively  in  their  periods  from  the  wise 
arrangement  of  all  in  an  original  predetermination. 

With  all  our  interest  in  such  surprising  creations  of  ge- 
nius, still  how  amusing  to  watch  the  double-play  perpetually 
going  on  between  the  sense  and  the  understanding !  The 
sense  gives  to  us  every  thing  compounded  and  thus  con- 
fused ;  and  the  mere  analysis  of  this,  according  to  this 
method  of  philosophizing,  takes  it  out  of  the  sense,  and 
gives  to  us  the  things  themselves  in  their  essential  being  in 
the  understanding.  Thus  the  atoms  become  things  as 
understanding-cognitions;  and  yet  when  we  would  think 
them  in  discursive  connections,  we  are  forced  further  on- 
ward for  our  real  notion  of  things,  and  must  endow  them 
with  an  inherent  causal-energy.  Then,  inasmuch  as  it  must 
be  an  analysis  from  sense,  and  we  have  analyzed  the  atom 
beyond  all  outer  relation,  we  take  the  causal-energy  from  an 
analogy  of  what  may  be  attained  in  an  analysis  of  our  inner" 
phenomena,  and  make  it  to  be  a  representation-force.  And 
when  we  would  use  this  as  the  medium  for  a  discursive  con- 
nection, it  is  wholly  impotent,  and  we  are  again  forced  for- 
ward for  our  notional  to  an  independent  and  unexplained 
pre-determination,  whicli  is  the  original  connective  for  this 
harmony.     The  notional  is  ever  thrown  fctrward,  and  when 


310        THE    UNDERSTANDING   IN   ITS   IDE  A. 

we  essay  to  step  upon  it,  it  straightway  fails  altogether  as  a 
ground  for  the  thinking,  and  the  judgment  is  ever  thrust 
forward  into  the  void,  hopeless  of  all  support.  It  thus, 
also,  makes  every  principle  it  uses  delusive.  The  principle 
of  "  the  indistinguishable "  is  found  in  the  use  which  the 
understanding  makes  of  this  false  notional  throughout.  The 
phenomenal  is  analyzed  beyond  all  outer  determinations, 
and  as  if  now  it  were  the  substantial  thing  in  itself,  its  dis- 
tinction from  all  others  is  to  be  found  in  the  inner  only. 
DiffeVence  of  identity  can  not  be  determined  by  place,  for 
space  itself  is  the  product  of  a  representation.  The  princi- 
j)le  of  "  sufficient  cause "  is  for  the  same  reason  delusive, 
and  no  true  notion  of  force  can  be  conceived,  but  only  har- 
monious representations.  The  representations  can  not  coun- 
teract ;  their  opposition  would  be  simply  irregularity  in 
time,  as  if  the  clock  should  not  strike  just  when  the  hand 
points  the  hour.  And  finally,  the  principle  of  "  preestab- 
lished  harmony"  leads  to  the  same  delusion,  on  the  same 
account  of  a  use  of  the  false  notional ;  for  this  harmony  is 
merely  conformity  of  representations,  not  an  agreement  of 
interacting  dynamical  forces.  The  system  is,  after  all,  sim- 
ply the  regulation  for  representing  appearances,  not  the  con- 
trol and  arrangement  of  acting  and  resisting  substances.  It 
is  no  more  a  nature  of  things  than  the  accordant  reflections 
of  two  mirrors  face  to  face. 

We  will  now  give  attention  to  the  other  method  of  phi- 
losophizing, viz. : 

2.  That  which  degrades  the  notional  to  a  vague  phenon> 
enal,  or  entirely  dispenses  with  it. 

In  this  order  of  building  up  a  physical  system,  nothing 
is  permitted  to  enter  as  conception  of  valid  being  which  has 


FALSE    SYSTEMS     OP    NATURE    EXPOSED.    311 

not  been  attained  through  the  sense.  A  supposed  superseu- 
sual  is  to  be  held  as  delusory,  and  though  accompanied  by 
iiTesistible  conviction  can  be  determined  as  resting  upon  no 
valid  basis. 

The  philo5Jophy  of  Locke  in  accounting  for  the  origina- 
tion of  all  our  knowledge,  is  the  source  of  all  this  order  of 
philosophizing  in  physics.  The  elements  of  all  knowledge 
and  the  essence  of  all  being  are  given  to  us  according  to 
Locke,  through  two  sources  only,  viz. :  Sensation,  giving  to 
us  that  which  is  material  element,  and  Reflection,  giving  to 
us  that  which  is  mental  element.  All  our  simple  elementary 
knowledge  is  thus  provided  for.  The  simple  elements,  pas- 
sively received,  may  be  in  various  ways  modified  through 
the  activity  of  the  mind  itself,  and  thus  kno^\Ti  in  various 
determined  relations.  The  mind  is  competent,  having  at- 
tained the  simple  elements,  to  combine,  compare,  and  ab- 
stract ;  and  through  such  mental  operations  we  may  k  low 
the  elements  as  united,  contrasted,  and  isolated.  Hence  our 
conceptions  of  double  and  single,  even  and  odd,  greater  \nd 
less,  higher  and  lower,  general  and  particular,  etc.  AH 
conceptions,  not  themselves  elementary  as  given  in  the 
sense,  are  to  be  thus  attained  by  a  mental  operation  n^jon 
what  is  given  in  the  sense ;  and  all  such  operaUcn  is 
confined  within  these  three  functions — combination,  com^  ar- 
isen, and  abstraction. 

From  what  we  have  already  gained  in  our  former  ioves- 
tigation,  it  is  manifest  that  all  those  immediate  intuil  ons 
which  are  given  in  the  definite  constructions  of  the  pher  )m- 
ena  of  sense,  may  in  this  way  be  accounted  for ;  b  it  the 
system  of  Locke  greatly  errs  in  its  partiality  an'^.  in^  )ra- 
pleteness,  in  supposing  that  any  conceptions,  condi  .^onf    for 


312        THE     UNDEESTAXDING    IN    ITS     IDEA. 

cliscxirsive  synthetical  judgments,  can  be  thus  attained. 
Conjunction  may  thus  be  effected,  but  not  connection.  Re- 
lationship in  space,  time,  and  amount,  may  thus  be  deter 
mined ;  but  not  the  inner  dynamical  relationships  of  being 
itself.  The  notions  of  substance,  cause,  and  reciprocal  in- 
fluence, are  no  combinations,  comparisons,  nor  abstractions 
of  any  simple  elements  attained  in  sense.  Here  is  the  grand 
defect  of  the  sensualism  of  Locke.  It  would  get  along 
with  only  the  functions  of  the  sense.  Sensation  gives  all 
phenomena ;  reflection  gives  all  the  intuitive  relations  of 
phenomena ;  and  no  distinction  is  recognized  between  con- 
joining and  connecting — mathematical  and  dynamical  rela- 
tions— intuitive  and  discursive  judgments.  Hence  it  would 
obtain  the  conceptions  of  cause  and  substance  as  it  would 
those  of  likeness  and  difference.  The  philosophy  begins  in 
the  sense,  as  all  knowledge  must ;  but  it  also  ends  in  the 
sense,  as  no  true  philosophy  can  be  permitted  to  do.  In- 
stead of  any  intelligible  dynamic  connections,  we  have 
really  only  juxtapositions  and  sequences.  All  understand- 
ing-cognitions are  forced  to  be,  in  some  way,  the  determina- 
tions of  sense. 

From  this  philosophy  diverse  theories  have  arisen  in  ref- 
erence to  various  topics  of  speculative  interest,  such  as  are 
designed  to  explain  the  manner  of  perception  ;  the  founda- 
tion of  moral  obligation  and  responsibility ;  and  the  capa- 
bility of  attaining  the  data  for  a  natural  theology;  but  we 
have  occasion  now  to  consider  such  only  as  relate  to  a  uni- 
versal nature  of  things.  A  few  of  the  more  prominent 
cases  will  be  sufficient  to  expose  the  illusion  which  comes  in 
on  this  side,  and  show  the  deceptive  ambiguity  in  the  poiD.t 


PALSE    SYSTEMS     OF    NATUKE    EXPOSED.    313 

of  degrading  the  notional  to  a  mere  phenomenal,  as  comiec- 
tive  for  a  universal  physical  system. 

(] .)  The  first  to  be  here  noticed  is  the  theory  of  David 
Hume.  Whether  the  philosophy  of  Locke  induced  the 
skepticism  of  Hume,  or  whether  the  skepticism  was  itself 
congenial  and  the  philosophy  adopted  as  the  means  of  justi- 
fying it,  is  not  incumbent  upon  us  here  to  decide.  This 
■much  is  clear,  that  he  most  acutely  detected  the  skeptical 
tendencies  of  this  philosophy,  and  as  legitimately  as  intrep- 
idly pushed  the  issue  to  the  entire  subversion  of  all  philoso- 
phy in  physics  and  of  all  science  in  theology.  Nature  and 
Religion  have  no  other  foundations  than  such  as  must  be 
laid  in  faith,  and  which  in  each  case  may  easily  be  convicted 
of  credulity ;  and  therefore  to  the  consistent  philosopher 
there  is  nothing  so  natural,  so  logically  consequential,  and 
thus  nothing  so  noble,  as  to  avow  his  doubts  of  them  both. 

The  process  in  Hume's  philosophizing  is  very  plain  and 
direct  from  the  premises  given.  Knowledge,  as  given  direct 
through  the  perceptions  of  sense,  is  experience ;  and  all  such 
sensible  objects  are  termed  "  Impressions."  The  recalling 
of  such  impressions  by  the  memory,  or  the  anticipation  of 
them  in  the  imagination,  he  terms  "  Ideas."  The  ideas  are 
the  copies  of  the  impressions,  but  as  secondary  they  must 
be  more  faint  and  indistinct  than  the  primary  perceptions. 
We  can  have  "  impressions  "  of  only  that  which  is  given  in 
experience ;  and  no  "  ideas  "  in  the  memory  or  the  imagina- 
tion which  must  not  also  be  the  copies  of  experience. 
These  "  impressions "  and  "  ideas  "  are  the  mind's  entire 
stock  of  original  elements  for  all  knowledge ;  and  by  the 
functions  of  combination,  comparison,  and  abstraction,  these 
elements  may  be  brought  into  various  propositions   and 

14 


314 


THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA« 


judgments ;  and  such  modifications  of  them  must  consti 
tute  the  sum  total  of  all  that  man  can  know. 

And  now,  "  the  relations  of  ideas,"  as  given  in  the  com- 
parisons and  combinations  of  the  mind,  are  demonstratively 
certain  ;  inasmuch  as  they  are  intuitive,  or  immediately  be- 
held ;  and  in  this  field  lie  all  the  conclusions  of  mathematics. 
Hero  is  exact  science.  But  "  matters  of  fact "  can  not  be  made 
to  stand  together  in  any  such  relations,  and  can  not  therefore 
be  brought  within  the  demonstrations  of  science.  How 
clearly,  in  all  this,  did  Hume  see  that  no  intuitive  process 
could  legitimate  a  discursive  judgment !  That  any  present 
fact  in  our  experience  should  be  connected  with  another 
fact  which  is  to  follow  it,  can  not  be  made  intuition ;  and 
yet,  by  calling  the  last  an  eflTect  of  the  first  as  its  cause,  we 
assume  that  there  is  a  necessary  connection,  and  then  carry 
our  convictions  quite  out  of  experience,  and  assume  to  de- 
termine how  other  facts  and  events  must  be,  which  have  not 
at  all  been  matters  of  experience,  and  perhaps  are  not  yet  at 
all  in  being.  By  what  legitimate  principles  are  such  con- 
nections in  judgments  effected  ?  All  d  priori  demonstra^ 
tion,  that  such  a  connection  must  be  in  order  that  experi- 
ence should  be  determined  in  the  space  and  time-relations, 
was  unknown  to  Hume,  and  utterly  impossible  to  be  effected 
by  any  philosophy  based  upon  experience;  and  thus  his 
skepticism  in  physical  science  stood  impregnable.  The  et 
feet  can  not  be  immediately  seen  in  the  cause ;  no  possible 
construction  can  give  an  intuition  from  one  to  the  other ; 
and  thus  there  can  not  be  any  predetermination  of  what  the 
consequent  shall  be  from  any  thing  given  in  the  antecedent. 
All  reasoning  from  effect  to  cause,  or  from  cause  to  effect,  is 
thus  wholly  an  assumption.     All  that  can  be  said  for  it,  and 


FALSE    SYSTEMS    OP    NATURE    EXPOSED.    315 

the  clearest  explanation  of  any  conviction  attained  through 
it,  is  simply  resolved  into  the  result  which  a  repetition  of 
experience  induces  in  the  mind. 

The  philosophical  explanation  of  the  process  is  this  ;  a 
first  experience  of  such  connection  was  like  all  other  expeii- 
ence,  an  "  impression"  as  a  primary  fact  of  sequence  with- 
out any  conception  of  necessity  in  the  order  of  connection. 
Frequent  repetition  of  the  same  sequence  as  "  impression," 
mduces  its  copy  as  "  idea"  in  the  memory,  and  this  also  is 
put  as  copy  in  the  anticipations  of  the  imagination ;  and  this 
copy  as  idea,  faint  at  first,  ultimately  becomes  strong  and 
confident  "belief"  that  such  connections  are  necessary. 
The  conception  of  cause  is  an  "  idea,"  as  it  is  a  copy  of  an 
"  impression,"  and  is  thus  a  mere  offspring  of  experience  as 
truly  as  any  other  copy  in  the  memory  or  the  imagination. 
The  experience  has  given  the  idea  of  cause ;  cause  has  not 
determined  the  order  of  experience  ;  and  hence  all  reasoning 
from  causes,  as  any  d  jyriori  conditioning  of  nature,  must  be 
mere  sophistry.  Both  Natural  Philosophy,  and  Natural 
Theology  are  at  once  convicted  of  building  a  structure  with- 
out a  basis. 

And  here  we  may  detect  the  fallacy  of  the  philosophy  in 
its  very  source,  and  dispel  the  delusion  which  has  given  so 
much  speciousness  to  this  skepticism,  by  applying  our  a 
■p7'iori  idea  of  an  understanding  as  function  for  connecting 
phenomena  in  a  system  of  universal  nature.  And  this  fal- 
lacy will  at  once,  in  this  light,  be  seen  to  lie  in  the  ambi- 
guity of  using  the  same  cognition  as  both  in  the  sense  and  in 
the  understanding.  Here  the  understanding-cognition  is 
sensualized  into  the  phenomenal,  whereas  in  the  formed 
order  of  philosophizing,  the  sense-conce])tion  was  intellec- 


316        THE     UNDEEST  ANDING    IX    ITS    IDEA. 

tualized  into  the  notional.  The  "impression"  is  wholly  of 
the  sense,  and  is  thus  phepomenon  only.  The  sequences  of 
events  are  phenomenal  sequences  altogether,  and  they  ac- 
count for  our  conmctions  of  necessary  connection  simply 
through  their  repetition  in  experience.  But  no  account  is 
attempted  for  any  necessary  order  in  the  events  of  nature. 
itself.  The  connectives  for  phenomena  into  a  cognition  of  a 
universal  nature  of  things  are  themselves  mere  copies  of 
the  phenomenal.  Cause  and  effect  in  their  own  necessary 
connections  do  not  condition  our  experience,  but  the  repeti- 
tions of  our  experience  condition  all  our  "  ideas"  of  causa- 
tion. The  same  also  must  have  been  true  of  the  connectives 
of  substance,  and  of  reciprocal  influence,  as  of  cause ;  only 
that  the  skepticism  did  not  philosophize  broad  enough  to 
encounter  the  necessity  for  their  explanation.  The  notion 
in  the  understanding  is  degraded  to  a  mere  copy  of  the  phe- 
nomenal in  the  sense,  and  gives  to  philosophy  a  nature  of 
things  which  only  seem  to  be  connected  in  universal  order 
and  system,  because  the  phenomena  as  original  "impres- 
sions" have  in  the  sense  had  their  juxtapositions  and 
sequences.  Nature  is  merely  a  mass  of  appearances,  and 
not  a  connection  of  existences :  a  continuance  of  "  impres- 
sions," and  not  a  series  of  things.  And  without  a  true 
notional  in  the  understanding,  as  a  priori  demonstrated  from 
the  conditions  of  determining  an  experience  in  the  space 
and  time-relations,  this  is  all  to  which  philosophy  could 
attain.  Science  could  not  go  beyond  sense.  Mathematics 
only  could  be  exact ;  philosophy  and  theology  must  be  opin- 
ion and  faith.  AH  judgments  of  a  nature  of  things  must 
rest  upon  mere  phantasms  as  the  copies  of  those  "  impres- 
sions" which  we  deem  them  to  connect ;  and  all  the  conclii* 


FALSE    SYSTEMS     OF    N  ATTIRE    EXPOSED.    817 

sions  of  natural  philosophy  and  theology  rest  solely  upon 
the  credulity  which  our  habitual  experience  has  induced. 
The  supercilious  sneer  of  the  skeptic  springs  spontaneously 
from  his  clear  perception  that  both  philosophy  and  religion 
have  no  foundation. 

(2.)  Another  example  of  this  delusive  method  of  discur- 
sive thinking  is  given  in  the  philosophy  of  Bro^^n.  The 
understanding-cognition  is  degraded  to  a  mere  illusion  of  the 
sense,  and  then  rejected  as  an  empty  figment.  The  order 
of  nature  in  the  connected  series  of  cause  and  effect  is 
reduced  to  a  mere  fact  of  invariable  sequence,  which  the 
human  mind  is  so  made  as  unavoidably  to  anticipate. 

This  entire  theory  of  causation  is  expressed  in  the  fol- 
lowing statement.  According  to  Brown,  simple  invariable 
succession  is  the  entire  conception  of  cause  and  effect.  The 
conception  of  poicer,  as  some  bond  which  connects  the  ante- 
cedent and  the  consequent,  is  affirmed  by  him  to  be  an  illu- 
sive phantom  of  the  imagination ;  and  though  common  to 
all  former  philosophers  with  the  vulgar,  is  yet  a  mere  chimera. 
That  an  illusion  of  some  third  thing,  called  power,  stands 
between  the  two  sequences  and  connects  them,  he  explains 
as  having  become  a  general  admission  from  various  sources. 
The  structure  of  language ;  a  false  identity  between  a  thing 
with  and- without  a  particular  predicate,  as  if  the  sun  shin- 
ing and  the  sun,  or  the  man  thinking  and  the  man,  were 
respectively  the  same ;  and  the  imperfection  of  the  sense 
which  is  perpetually  finding  higher  antecedents ;  all  these 
are  made  to  explain  the  fact  that  the  delusive  conception  of 
power  has  become  so  common.  But  when  the  mind  is  disa- 
bused of  this  delusion,  then  the  whole  process  of  cause  and 
»ffect  ceases  to  be  so  w  ysterious  and  inexplicable.     There  ia 


818        THE     UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

no  such  mysterious  something  ei^er  present  in  all  sequences 
and  never  appearing,  which  has  been  called  power,  for  con- 
necting them  together. 

Such  an  illusion  of  an  intervening  connective  does  not 
help  to  explain  our  conception  of  cause  and  effect,  but  in 
truth  gives  another  antecedent  altogether  more  inexplicable 
than  the  phenomenon  itself.  Expel  such  a  delusion,  and 
then  there  remains  simple  invariable  sequence.  The  whole 
real  meaning  of  power  is,  therefore,  this  invariableness  of 
succession.  To  say  that  a  certain  degree  of  heat  applied  to 
a  metal  will  have  its  invariable  consequent  of  liquefaction  ; 
or  to  say  that  a  certain  volition  is  invariably  followed  by 
muscular  motion,  is  in  each  case  the  same  as  to  say  that  the 
first  has  power  to  produce  the  last,  and  which  again  is  the 
same  as  to  say  the  first  is  the  cause  of  the  last.  Invariable- 
ness of  sequence  is  the  whole  conception  of  power  and  of 
causation.  Having  thus  taken  away  all  intrinsic  dynamical 
connection,  the  natural  inquiry  for  the  origin  of  this  univer- 
sal conviction  of  invariable  succession  is  met  by  cutting, 
without  any  attempt  at  untying,  the  knot,  and  resolving  the 
whole  into  an  arbitrary  constitution  of  the  human  mind. 
We  are  so  made  as  necessarily  to  imbibe  such  a  conviction. 
It  is  an  instinct  implanted  in  human  nature,  operating  as  an 
"  internal  revelation,"  and  is  "  a  voice  of  ceaseless  and  uner- 
ring prophecy." 

Locke  had  attempted  to  account  for  the  genesis  of  such 
a  conception  as  power,  and  thus  for  causation,  from  sensi- 
ble experience.  But  Brown,  more  clearly  than  Locke,  saw 
the  impossibility  of  attaining  any  proper  conception  of 
power  as  phenomenon  in  sense.  Obedient  to  the  philoso 
phy,  therefore,  since  the.  ^.onception  of  power  can  not  come 


FALSE    SYSTEMS     OF    NATURE    EXPOSED.      310 

from  it,  it  is  taken  as  wholly  a  delusion,  and  its  reality  dis- 
carded altogether.  If  it  were  at  all  possible  to  be  used,  he 
knows  of  no  other  method  than  by  interposing  it  as  another 
phenomenal  antecedent  to  the  effect,  and  thus  merely  per- 
plexing the  matter  without  at  all  explaining  it.  It  is  made 
the  mere  shadow  which  coming  events  cast  before  them,  and 
the  mind  from  its  conformation  anticipates  the  consequent 
as  wholly  an  unexplained  prediction.  The  notional,  as  un- 
derstanding-cognition, is  wholly  abolished  in  the  mere  sense- 
cognition  of  an  invariable  sequence,  and  the  conviction  of 
such  invariable  order  is  an  instinctive  prophesying. 

But  how  impossible  thus  to  attain  to  an  intellectual  sys- 
tem of  universal  nature !  The  separate  phenomena  are  as 
really  independent  of  all  inter-agency  as  the  particles  of  dust 
floating  in  the  sunlight,  and  simply  have  such  an  invariable 
order,  but  nothing  which  efficiently  j^roJi^ces  it.  Nature  is 
a  mere  congeries  of  phenomena,  and  as  destitute  of  all  con- 
nection and  reciprocal  communion  as  the  letters  of  tlie 
alphabet. 

(3.)  There  are  two  other  modifications  of  this  method 
of  philosophizing,  having  an  immediate  reference  to  mental 
phenomena,  and  out  of  which  have  originated  two  theories 
for  giving  to  the  mind  systematic  unity  ;  and  which  are  of 
the  more  interest  for  American  psychologists,  since  their 
respective  authors  were  divines  of  great  distinction  and 
high  reputation  in  the  religious  community  of  New  England 
while  they  lived,  and  their  influence  upon  all  metaphysical 
speculation  will  not  cease  with  the  generation  that  now  suc- 
ceeds them.  We  need  have  no  reference  to  any  theological 
doctrines  to  which  these  theories  may  have  been  applied, 
either  for  explanation,  defense,  or  refutation ;   nor  to  any 


320         THE     UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

Other  religious  or  philosophical  tenets  of  their  author; ,  but 
solely  to  the  methods  in  which  mental  phenomena  are  sought 
to  be  connected  into  a  system  in  the  Understanding. 

The  first  to  which  we  will  here  attend,  though  later  in 
age,  is  the  theory  of  the  late  Dr.  Emmons,  so  venerable  while 
living,  and  so  much  revered  since  his  death.  This  theory 
has  been  familiarly  called  "  the  exercise  scheme  ;"  and  when 
referred  to  the  true  idea  of  an  understanding  as  above 
attained,  will  be  found  to  follow  that  order  of  philosophizing 
which  we  are  now  considering — making  the  phenomenal  to 
be  the  essential  being,  and  wholly  dispensing  with  the 
notional,  or  introducing  an  arbitrary  and  illusory  figment. 

The  outline  of  this  theory  is  as  follows  : — The  specific 
acts  of  thinking,  feeling,  loving,  willing,  etc.,  come  within 
consciousness,  and  each  one  for  the  period  of  its  duration  is 
the  soul  in  its  essential  being.  There  is  no  true  substance 
which,  as  constant  substratum  or  perpetual  source,  perma- 
nently exists,^ and  that  changes  in  its  mode  of  being  so  as  to 
occasion  the  altered  events  ;  but  w^hen  the  thinking  is,  that 
is  the  soul ;  and  when  that  departs  and  a  feeling  or  a  willing 
is,  the  exercise  is  all  there  is  of  the  being,  and  the  soul 
exists  as  one  and  simple  in  every  act.  The  voluntary  exer- 
cises make  the  moral  man,  and  all  such  acts  in  distinction 
from  intellectual  acts  are  known  as  the  heart.  "  The  heart 
consists  in  voluntary  exercises,  and  voluntary  exercises  are 
moral  agency."  "  There  is  no  morally  corrupt  nature,  dis- 
tinct from  free  voluntary  sinful  exercises."  The  phenom- 
enal is  the  sole  being  of  mind,  and  nothing  is  but  that  which 
is  the  exercise  itself 

And  here,  with  all  existence  wholly  in  the  exercise  and 
Utterly  exclusive  of  any  substance  which  may  be  thoug'it  as 


FALSE    SYSTEMS    OF    NATUJJB    EXPOSED.      321 

perpetual  source  for  the  exercises,  the  mquiry  mast  arise — 
Whence  are  these  exercises  ?  Is  there  a  void  of  all  being 
between  them,  and  thus  does  each,  as  essential  existence, 
come  up  from  a  vacuity  of  all  existence  ?  This  would  seem 
to  be  the  necessary  conclusion,  since  no  substantial  being  is, 
which  may  perdure  through  all  the  exercises.  To  escape 
from  such  a  chasm  of  all  being  and  an  origination  of  tlie 
phenomenal  being  of  the  exercise  utterly  from  a  void,  as 
must  follow  when  the  notional  is  discarded  and  an  under- 
standing is  vacated,  the  supernatural  is  immediately  inter- 
posed, and  the  exercise  comes  up  as  a  direct  production  of 
the  Deity.  "  Since  all  men  are  dependent  agents,  all  their 
motions,  exercises,  or  actions  must  originate  from  a  Divine 
efficiency.  We  can  no  more  act  than  we  can  exist  without 
the  constant  aid  and  influence  of  the  Deity."  The  super- 
natural is  thus  made  to  take  the  place  of  the  notional,  and 
all  the  phenomena  immediately  originate  in  God,  and  are 
connected  in  unity  by  the  direct  efficiency  of  God.  The 
human  agency  is  the  exercise  itself,  and  the  Divine  agency 
is  the  efficient  producer  of  it ;  and  thus  it  is  affirmed  that 
"  human  agency  is  always  inseparably  connected  with  Divine 
agency."  "  He  not  only  prepared  persons  to  act,  but  made 
them  act."  "  There  is  no  possible  way  in  which  He  could 
dispose  them  to  act  right  or  wrong  but  only  by  producing 
right  or  wrong  volitions  in  their  hearts.  And  if  He  pro- 
duced their  bad  as  well  as  good  volitions,  then  His  agency 
was  concerned  in  precisely  the  same  manner  in  their  w^ong 
as  in  their  right  actions."  "  His  agency  in  making  them  act 
necessarily  connects  His  agency  and  theirs  together."  The 
Divine  efficiency  is  thus  made  to  subserve  all  the  purposes 
of  the  notional  in  an  understanding,  and  the  phenomenal 

14* 


i22        THE     UNDERSTAXDING    IN     ITS    IDEA. 

exercises  come  up  from  it,  and  adhere  together  in  a  series 
by  it. 

But  the  delusiveness  of  such  a  false  connection  in  the 
understanding  is  at  once  exposed,  when  we  step  forward 
upon  it  and  trust  our  philosophy  to  it.  For  all  that  we  pos- 
sibly know  is  the  phenomenal  only,  and  all  our  conceptions 
must  conform  to  the  phenomenal,  and  although  we  have 
used  the  efficiency  of  the  Deity  as  the  origin  and  connective 
of  all  human  exercises,  yet  must  we  now  degrade  this  super- 
natural, used  as  a  notional,  at  once  to  the  phenomenal  only. 
How  may  we  conceive  of  the  Divine  agency  in  any  other 
manner  than  as  phenomenal  exercise  ?  Divine  efficiency  in 
producing  our  exercises  is  but  an  exercise,  single  and  simple 
in  being  as  our  own.  This,  in  other  connections  of  the 
theoiy,  is  fully  admitted  and  even  directly  argued,  though 
when  fully  apprehended  in  its  bearings  upon  the  philosophy 
it  shows  its  whole  basis  to  be  a  mere  delusion.  The  Divine 
efficiency  is  wholly  ambiguous ;  it  has  been  used  as  a  no- 
tional, but  w^hen  we  come  to  rest  upon  it,  the  fact  that  after 
all  it  is  only  the  phenomenal  betrays  itself  God  exists  just 
as  we  exist,  in  exercises  only.  "  There  is  no  more  difficulty 
in  forming  clear  and  just  conceptions  of  God's  power,  wis- 
dom, goodness,  and  agency,  than  in  forming  clear  and  just 
conceptions  of  human  power,  wisdom,  goodness,  and  agency. 
Power  in  God  is  of  the  same  nature  as  power  in  man.  Wis- 
dom in  God  is  of  the  same  nature  as  wisdom  in  man.  Good 
ness  in  God  is  of  the  same  nature  as  goodness  in  man.  And 
free  voluntary  moral  agency  in  God  is  of  the  same  nature  as 
free  voluntary  moral  agency  in  man.  To  say  that  God's 
agency  is  different  in  nature  from  our  own  is  as  absurd  as  to 
say  that  His  knowledge,  His  power,  or  His  moral  rectitude  is 


FALSE    SYSTEMS     OF    NATURE    EXPOSED.        323 

different  from  our  own.  And  to  say  this  is  to  say  that  we 
have  not,  and  can  not  have,  any  true  knowledge  of  God." 
God's  agency  is  as  our  own  agency,  with  His  whole  exist- 
ence in  the  single  exercise  for  the  period  of  its  duration ; 
phenomenal  and  fleeting  from  exercise  to  exercise  ;  so  that  we 
are  just  as  far  from  all  originating  source  and  connecting 
efficiency  of  the  exercises  as  before.  We  have  deluded  our- 
selves by  the  use  of  a  divine  efficiency,  as  if  it  were  a  legiti- 
mate notion  as  source  and  connecting  cause  for  our  human 
exercises  ;  but  when  we  now  come  to  rest  upon  it,  we  find 
it  to  be  mere  appearance  and  not  being ;  a  sense-cognition 
of  the  phenomenal  and  not  at  all  an  understanding-cognition 
of  the  notional ;  and  the  reeling  philosophy  must  at  once 
fall,  or  betake  itself  to  some  other  and  further  advanced 
delusion  of  using  the  sense  for  the  understanding.  Such  a 
philosophy  can  not  possibly  attain  to  a  conception  of  the 
efficiency  it  so  much  uses.  It  calls  it  Divine  efficiency — 
Deity;  but  it  is  used  only  as  an  originating  source  and  con- 
necting cause  for  human  phenomenal  acts.  K  it  were  validly 
attained  it  would  be  mere  physical  connective  for  the  exer- 
cises ;  but  as  ultimately  apprehended,  it  means  only  a  higher 
exercise  single  and  isolated,  and  equally  as  devoid  of  all  pos- 
sible conception  of  efficiency  as  the  human  exercise.  There 
is  no  connective  for  mental  action,  either  as  human  or  Divine ; 
and  the  very  notion  of  efficiency,  to  say  nothing  of  a  free 
personality  and  independent  Deity,  is  a  surreptitious  taking 
of  a  passing  phenomenon  in  its  place.  Such  exercises  could 
no  more  be  determined  as  an  experience  in  time,  than  the 
exercises  of  our  dreams  can  be  connected  in  the  unity  of 
existence  with  our  waking  hours. 

The  other  theory  belonging  to  the  same  process  in  philos* 


324         THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

ophizing,  and  the  last  which  we  shall  here  feel  disposed  t( 
notice  particularly,  is  that  which  is  advanced  by  Pres 
Edwards,  in  answer  to  an  objection  against  the  doctrine  of 
Original  Sin.  His  acceptation  of  the  doctrine  of  originaJ 
sin,  in  systematic  theology,  is  that  of  an  imputation  of 
Adam's  first  transgression  to  all  his  posterity  in  this  sense. 
that  in  all  there  is  a  "  liableness  or  exposedness,  in  the  divine 
judgment,  to  partake  of  the  punishment  of  that  sin."  The 
objection  which  he  conceives  as  being  brought  against  such 
a  doctrine  is,  "  that  such  imputation  is  unjust  and  unreason- 
able, inasmuch  as  Adam  and  his  posterity  are  not  one  and 
the  same."  The  objection  is  removed  by  affirming  just  the 
opposite,  viz.,  that  Adam  and  his  posterity  are  one  and  the 
same  ;  and  then  comes  in  the  philosophical  theory  to  which 
we  here  have  reference,  to  show  the  identity  of  the  race 
with  the  progenitor  in  the  first  transgression.  With  such 
identity  understood,  the  punishment  is  apprehended  as  both 
just  and  reasonable,  inasmuch  as  their  action  is  involved  as 
truly  as  his  act.  But  without  any  concern  here  with  the 
theological  doctrine,  we  look  only  at  the  philosophical  theory 
to  account  for  the  personal  identity  of  all  with  Adam. 

There  is  first  a  somewhat  extensive  reference  to  different 
analogies  in  the  perpetuation  of  identity  in  other  cases ;  as 
of  a  tree  a  hundred  years  old,  and  that  tree  as  it  first 
sprang  from  the  ground ;  the  adult  body  of  forty  years, 
with  the  body  in  its  infancy ;  the  identity  in  one  person  of 
the  body  and  the  soul ;  and  perpetuated  consciousness  as 
throughout  the  same  consciousness;  after  which  comes  a 
more  explicit  announcement  of  the  theory.  It  is  made  to 
have  a  general  application  to  the  phenomena  of  both  the 
material  and  the  mental  world.     These  phenomena  are  over 


VALSE    SYSTEMS     OF    NATURE    EXPOSED.    325 

separate  and  fleeting,  and  the  difficulty  is,  as  thus  isolate,  to 
account  for  their  identity  in  any  one  thing.  Thus  we  have 
the  brightness  of  the  moon  shining  in  the  clear  evening  sky, 
and  that  shining  appears  constant  and  in  perpetual  being. 
But  when  this  is  intellectually  considered,  it  is  manifest  that 
nothing  here  is  permanent ;  but  that  all  is  only  a  repetition 
of  coming  and  departing  appearance.  The  rays  in  one  in- 
stant of  the  shniing  are  not  those  of  the  next  instant.  A 
new  effect  comes  into  being  with  each  successive  moment  of 
the  shining,  and  this  coming  and  departing  of  one  new 
effect  after  another  is  the  same  in  all  its  qualities ;  in  the 
gravity  of  the  moon  as  in  that  of  its  shining ;  and  this  also 
in  the  case  of  all  the  phenomena  of  an  outer  world.  All 
nature  is  but  a  continual  repetition  of  new  creations.  Noth- 
ing is  for  a  moment  the  same,  but  its  perpetuation  is  a  con- 
tinual repetition  of  new  products.  That  there  is  any  per- 
petuity to  any  thing  depends  wholly  upon  perpetual  crea- 
tions, and  identity  of  object  in  any  thing  is  an  arbitrary 
establishment  of  the  Deity.  A  divine  constitution  is  given 
to  nature  in  these  incessant  and  orderly  new  creations.  The 
sameness  or  identity  of  any  thing,  from  time  to  time,  con- 
sists solely  in  the  keeping  of  an  onward  flow  of  these  new 
products.  I^othing  is  the  same  in  nature  from  one  period 
to  another,  but  just  as  the  flowing  river  is  the  same  ;  a  con- 
tinual coming  and  departing  of  the  new  elements  of  which 
the  thing  is  constituted. 

By  the  like  arbitrary  establishment  of  the  Deity  through 
a  perpetual  Divine  efficiency,  the  personal  identity  of  every 
human  being  is  constituted.  One  mental  phenomenon  de- 
parts and  another  comes,  just  as  the  efficiency  of  God  keeps 
on  the  perpetual  series ;  and  inasmuch  as  this  is  the  sole 


826       THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

ground  of  all  personal  identity,  nothing  hinders  that  Ihia 
perpetuated  divine  constitution  should  run  on  from  one  per- 
son to  another,  and  up  through  all  persons  to  their  first  pa- 
rent. No  man  would  be  the  same  from  hour  to  hour,  and 
on  from  year  to  year,  except  for  this  divine  constitution ; 
and  this  may  just  as  well  give  identity  from  age  to  age  as 
from  year  to  year,  and  to  all  individuals  of  the  race  as  to  all 
the  phenomena  in  each  individual.  This  is  what  gives  to 
the  human  race  its  unity,  and  humanity  is  thus  constituted 
one  identity  through  all  ages.  The  first  transgression  is 
therefore  an  act  belonging  to  all,  and,  as  sinful,  throws  its 
guilt  and  liability  to  punishment  upon  all ;  inasmuch  as  in 
this  divine  constitution  an  identity  is  perpetuated,  making 
ill  to  be  truly  one. 

How  clearly  is  all  this  method  of  philosophizing  based 
upon  the  principle  of  bringing  in  the  conception  of  a  super- 
natural to  perform  the  part  of  a  notional  in  the  connections 
of  the  understanding.  Phenomena  are  taken  as  the  true 
being,  and  a  divine  efficiency  connects  them ;  and  this  not 
only  in  nature  but  in  personality ;  and  not  only  in  one  per- 
son but  identifying  all  persons.  How  shall  such  an  effi- 
ciency be  attained  except  as  a  mere  assumption  ?  How  shall 
its  own  connections  in  any  identity  be  determined  ?  How 
shall  phenomena  be  determined  in  the  experience  as  in  one 
space  and  in  one  time,  without  shutting  up  this  connecting 
divine  efficiency  also  within  the  determinations  of  space  and 
time  ?  The  Deity  must  in  this  way  be  degraded  to  the 
phenomenal.  And  in  the  same  manner  may  we  detect  the 
fallacies  of  all  philosophizing,  where  the  phenomenal  is 
forced  into  the  place  of  the  only  true  being,  and  the  no- 
tional is  discarded ;  or  the  supernatural  is  made  to  take  its 


VAL8B    SYSTEMS     OF    NATURE    EXPOSED,        32" 

place,  only  in  the  very  next  step  to  be  forced  in  subjection 
to  the  constructions  of  the  sense.  The  phenomenal  can 
ne^'er  be  connected  into  a  system  of  nature  and  determined 
in  an  experience  in  space  and  time,  by  any  false  playing  off 
of  the  conjunctions  of  the  sense  for  the  connections  of  the 
understanding;  nor  by  surreptitiously  introducing  a  Divine 
efficiency,  which  can  itself  have  no  other  predicates  than  the 
a  priori  elements  of  quantity. 

We  may,  then,  affirm  the  partiality,  incompleteness,  and 
thus  the  error  of  all  philosophy  which  deludes  itself  by  an 
ambiguity,  on  either  side,  of  elevating  the  sense  into  the 
region  of  the   understanding  or  of   degrading   the   under- 
standing to  the  functions  of  the  sense.     An  amphiboly  nec- 
essarily follows,  and  the  ball  is  tossed  from  one  hand  into 
the  other,  as  every  changing  step  destroys  the  balance  thus 
vainly  sought  to  be  preserved.     Certainly,  with  very  few 
exceptions,  philosophy  from  its  earliest  history  has  kept  it- 
self one-sided  on  one  or  the  other  of  these  extremes ;  and 
to  help  itself  out  of  its  difficulties,  either  nature  has  been 
made  God  or  God  has  been  made  nature.     The  English 
mind  has  best  maintained  its  balance,  since  the  great  lights 
of  Grecian  philosophy  in  Plato  and  Aristotle  have  been  ob- 
scured or  perverted,  and  this  not  so  much  from  the  clear  and 
intelligent  apprehension  of  the  manner  of  doing  it,  as  by  an 
almost  instinctive  mother-wit  or  good  judgment,  sometimes 
called  common-sense,  which  forbad  the  putting  of  all  things 
upon  either  foot  at  once ;  and  feeling  the  awkwardness  of 
all  such  attempts,  it  has  striven  at  least  to  make  its  philos- 
ophy stand  on  both  feet.     Cud  worth  has  introduced  his  con- 
ception of  "  a  plastic  pmcer  "  into  nature ;  and  this,  though 
neither  a   space-filling  substance  nor  a  time-filling  source { 


328       THE     UNDERSTAXDIXG    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

neither  successive  cause  nor  simultaneous  reciprocity .,  yet, 
as.  a  connective  notional  in  an  understanding,  merely  general 
and  which  might  be  made  to  accomplish  what  any  occasion 
for  its  use  should  require,  has  preserved  his  intellectual  sys- 
tem of  the  universe  from  falling  into  the  gulf  on  either  side, 
through  an  annihilation  of  the  sense,  or  an  emptiness  of  the 
understanding.  It  gave  a  real  dynamical  connection  to  the 
phenomenal  universe,  though  with  no  possible  determinate 
order  d  priori  j  and  his  whole  atomic  contrivance  is  just  so 
much  surplusage,  inasmuch  as  all  notional  connective  is  sup- 
plied in  the  ''''plastic  poioer^'^  and  the  atoms  become  the 
mere  "  chips  in  the  porridge,"  the  philosophy  being  wholly 
made  up  without  them. 

So,  also,  Newton's  good  judgment,  cleaving  to  facts 
rather  than  speculation,  and  taking  these  in  their  intellectual 
laws  rather  than  merely  observed  appearances,  kept  both 
the  constructions  of  the  sense  and  the  connections  of  the 
understanding  in  their  proper  spheres,  and  performing  their 
proper  services  in  the  cognition  of  universal  nature ;  but 
without  any  apprehension  of  an  d  priori  psychology,  which 
gave  to  each  their  necessary  and  universal  conditions.  The 
notions  of  substance,  cause,  and  reciprocal  influence,  were  un 
derstood  to  be  the  laws  in  nature,  while  the  diagrams  in  pure 
space  and  time  gave  the  intuitive  forms  for  all  phenomena  ; 
and  thus  was  a  nature  of  things  truly  constituted,  with  no 
ambiguity  of  either  the  functions  of  the  sense  or  those  of 
the  understanding.  And  so  more  emphatically  with  the 
philosophical  genius  of  Lord  Bacon ;  accurately  distinguish- 
ing the  laws  and  forms  in  nature,  from  all  qualities  and  events 
m  appearance ;  and  thus  perfectly  separating  the  work  of 
the  sense,  from  all  operati(ms  of  the  understanding ;  analyz- 


FALSE     SYSTEMS     OP    NATURE    EXPOSED.    329 

ing  nature  intellectually  and  not  chemically;  it  has  estab- 
lished forever  the  highway  of  all  inductive  science,  though 
all  unconscious  of  an  d  priori  road  which,  in  its  misappre- 
hension, it  affected  to  despise  as  emptiness  and  absurdity. 
The  idealism  it  condemns  is  that  which  its  own  good  judg- 
ment taught  itself  to  shun — a  mere  arbitrary  hypothesis ; 
not  that  which  has  its  ideals  in  the  conditional  laws  of  all 
thought,  and  which  must  necessarily  be  in  nature,  if  nature 
herself  may  be  subjected  to  a  determined  experience  in 
space  and  time. 

We  here  complete  the  First  Chapter  of  the  Understand- 
ing, having  attained  it  completely  in  its  Idea,  and  also  seen 
how,  in  the  light  of  this  idea,  we  may  detect  the  errors  of 
false  and  defective  processes  of  philosophizing,  in  those 
very  points  where  the  fallacies  originate ;  because  they  are 
seen  to  depart  from  the  primitive  elements  of  all  possible 
connection,  and  to  violate  the  conditional  principles  of  all 
thinking  in  discursive  judgments,  and  thereby  render  them- 
selves helpless  in  all  determination  of  an  experience  in  space 
and  time.     But,  as  yet  om*  attainment  is  only  an  Idea. 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE  UNDERSTANDING  IN  ITS  OBJECTIVE  LAW. 


SECTION    I. 

SPACE    AND    TIME,    EACH   AS   A  WHOLE. 

Tke  Function  of  an  Understanding  is  to  so  give  connec- 
tion to  the  phenomena  gained  in  the  sense,  that  they  may 
become  an  order  of  experience  determined  to  their  places  in 
space  and  to  their  periods  in  time.  Our  a  priori  idea  of 
such  function  that  may  operate  such  a  result,  has  been  found 
to  include  the  notion  of  con&tant  substance  as  ground  for  con- 
nection in  space  ;  perduring  substance  as  source  for  connec- 
tion in  perpetual  time,  consecutive  cause  as  efficiency  for  con- 
necting in  successive  time,  and  reciprocal  cause  as  condition 
for  connecting  in  simultaneous  time.  This  is  subjective 
Idea,  or  possible  understanding  only ;  for  demonstrative 
science  it  is  still  incumbent  that  we  attain  a  Law  in  actual 
facts,  the  correlative  of  this  idea,  and  in  such  determine  the 
real  operation  of  such  a  faculty. 

In  effecting  this,  we  shall  take  our  attained  a  priori  idea 
for  the  present  as  hypothesis  only,  and  will  apply  it  to  actual 
facts  in  a  sufficiently  broad  hiduction  to  induce  full  conviction 
that  our  necessary  and  universal  idea  has  its  coimterpart  in 
a  veritable  law  of  intelligent  action.     We  shall  need  to 


ONE    SPACE    AND     ONE    TIME.  331 

gather  facts  in  respect  both  to  the  determination  of  an 
experience  in  one  whole  of  space  and  of  time,  and  the 
determination  of  it  to  particular  places  and  periods  in  this 
one  whole  of  space  and  of  time.  It  will  be  requisite  tc 
appropriate  a  section  to  each. 

That  we  in  fact  do  determine  experience  in  both  ways,  i? 
manifest  from  our  forms  of  expression  and  the  universal  adap 
tations  of  language.  We  speak  of  a  universal  Space  as  inclu- 
sive of  all  spaces,  and  in  which  all  experience  is  in  the  same  one 
space.  So,  also,  we  speak  of  a  universal  Time  inclusive  of 
all  times,  comprising  eternitas  a  parte  ante  and  eternitds  a 
parte  post^  and  in  which  all  experience  of  ourselves  or  others 
is  embraced.  We  speak  of  space  as  one  void  expanse,  which 
in  its  immensity  gives  place  for  all  phenomena ;  and  of  time 
as  one  open  duration,  in  which  is  pei'iod  for  all  events.  We 
talk  of  the  unfolding  and  unrolling  of  time ;  that  which 
has  been  as  already  spread  out,  that  which  now  is  as  just 
opening,  and  that  which  is  to  come  as  yet  shut  up  :  and  so 
also  of  the  stream  of  time,  all  the  parts  of  which  pass  any 
one  point  successively ;  and  of  the  ocean  of  time,  which,  as 
one  all-embracing  flood,  bears  all  events  along  together. 
Space  is  thus  a  whole  enclosing  all  spaces,  and  not  an  ever- 
growing conjunction  of  parts ;  and  time  is  one  whole  em- 
bracing all  periods,  and  not  an  endless  adjunct  of  portions 
of  time.  We  speak,  moreover,  of  experience  determined  in 
its  particular  places,  as  of  the  map  of  human  experience  in 
which  all  phenomena  have  their  place  ;  and  also  determined 
in  its  particular  periods,  as  of  the  chronicle  of  human  experi- 
ence in  which  all  events  have  their  own  order  of  occurrence. 

With  the  fact  manifest  in  all  forms  of  communication 
that  we  determine  experience  both  in  a  whole  of  space  and 


332         THE    UNPEESTANDING    IN    ITS    LAW. 

of  time,  and  each  fact  of  experience  to  a  particular  place 
and  period  in  this  whole  of  space  and  of  time ;  we  have 
this  as  the  end  of  our  present  investigation,  to  answer  the 
inquiry — How  is  this  effected  ?  Do  the  facts  in  the  case 
show  that  such  determination  is  made  under  a  Law,  which 
completely  corresponds  with  our  a  priori  Idea  ?  This  we 
must  make  to  be  apparent,  both  as  determination  in  one 
whole  of  space  and  of  time ;  and  as  particular  in  place  and 
period. 


SECTIOIsr    II. 

THE   DETERMINATION    OF   EXPERIENCE   IN   ONE   WHOLE   OF 
SPACE   AND    OP   TIME. 

"We  will  here  make  an  induction  of  facts,  which  will  be 
seen  to  come  under  the  conditions  of  our  hypothetical  idea, 
viz.,  that  we  determine  an  experience  to  be  in  one  universal 
space  and  time,  through  the  connections  of  the  phenomenal 
in  a  notional.  We  will  take  an  experience  in  space  and  an 
experience  in  time  separately,  inasmuch  as  the  facts  in  each 
case  must  be  of  a  different  class  and  indicating  a  peculiar 
notional  connective  for  each ;  that  of  experience  in  universal 
space,  conditioned  upon  the  connection  of  space-filling  sub- 
stance, and  that  of  experience  in  universal  time,  conditioned 
upon  the  connection  of  time-enduring  source.  The  substance 
is  known  as  space-filling,  by  the  apprehending  of  a  constant 
impenetrability  in  the  same  place ;  and  as  time-enduring, 
from  the  perduring  of  this  impenetrability  through  its  differ- 
ent places,  or  its  altered  phenomena  in  the  same  place. 


EXPEKIEXCE    IN    ONE    SPACE    AND    TIME.    333 

1.  Experience  in  Universal  Space. — Let  w?,  first  take  the 
facts  given  in  our  2)ure  intuitive  reasoning.  It  would  be  the 
same  in  numbers  as  m  the  pure  diagrams  of  points  in  space ; 
but  the  ilhistration  will  not  be  so  perspicuous  from  the  use 
of  numbers,  as  from  that  of  definite  pure  figures  in  space. 
When  I  construct  any  diagram  by  my  sole  intellectual 
agency  in  self-consciousness,  I  have  in  the  apprehension  of 
She  pure  diagram  necessarily  the  apprehension  of  a  place 
ilso.  Every  repetition  of  the  constructing  of  similar  pure 
diagrams  is  necessarily  connected  with  the  apprehension  of 
a  place  for  each  completed  construction.  Our  facts,  there- 
fore, may  here  be  multiplied  to  the  extent  that  we  can  have 
different  constructions  of  pure  diagrams,  all  giving  an  appre- 
hension of  a  space  in  the  fact  of  their  own  pure  apprehen- 
sion. 

But  none  of  these  pure  spaces  are  determined  as  in  one 
universal  space.  One  construction  is  produced  and  dis- 
missed after  another  and  at  different  periods  intervening, 
and  as  the  pure  diagram  departs  from  the  self-consciousness, 
the  place  apprehended  also  departs  with  it ;  inasmuch  as 
neither  the  diagram  nor  the  place  had  any  significancy 
except  in  my  subjective  consciousness.  We  can  by  no 
means  determine  that  these  places  are  in  one  universal  space, 
and  only  determine  from  the  primitive  unity  of  our  self- 
consciousness,  that  they  have  been  constructed  and  appre- 
hended by  one  self  There  is  no  constant  substance,  as 
space-filling,  whereby  to  determine  constant  sameness  of 
place,  and  we  do  not,  therefore,  determine  different  con- 
structed pure  diagrams  in  their  places  to  be  in  one  and  the 
same  universal  space. 

Much  less  is  it  practicable  to  determine  the  pure  dia« 


834         THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    LAW. 

grams  constructed  in  different  self-conscious  subjects  and 
their  apprehended  spaces  to  be  in  one  universal  space.  The 
constructing  agency  is  conditioned  only  by  the  scheme  in 
the  productive  imagination  in  each  subject ;  and  we  do  not 
determine  one  man's  pure  diagrams  in  space,  to  be  in  the 
same  universal  space  with  the  places  of  another  man's  dia* 
grams.  We  can  not  say  that  the  triangles,  circles,  etc.,  of 
one,  are  the  same  as  those  of  another ;  nor  that  they  are 
together  in  the  same  one  whole  of  all  space ;  inasmuch  as 
there  is  no  one  space-filling  substance,  which  occasions  the 
constructions  in  all  persons  to  be  of  one  thing,  and  in  one 
and  the  same  place,  and  this  in  the  one  universal  space.  The 
law  for  construction  is  here  found,  but  the  law  for  connec- 
tion is  utterly  wanting ;  and  hence,  while  we  have  the  intui- 
tion, we  can  have  no  judgment  in  the  understanding,  and 
while  we  have  a  subjective  experience,  as  seeming  phenom- 
ena, we  can  have  no  connection  of  these  seeming  phenom- 
ena into  an  experience  determined  in  one  universal  space. 

We  will  7iext  take  facts  in  mere  organic  affections. — The 
organ  of  vision  is  the  most  appropriate,  though  sometimes 
facts  of  the  same  class  may  be  found  in  the  organ  of  touch, 
or  that  of  sound.  It  is  practicable,  by  a  pressure  on  the 
eye-ball,  to  attain  changeable  floating  colors  in  our  selt- 
consciousness,  and  which  keep  up  their  appearance  for  a 
longer  or  shorter  period.  We  may  construct  them  into 
figures  more  or  less  definite,  and  though  often  unlike  any 
shapes  of  reality,  they  yet  have  their  places  and  relationships 
each  to  each.  Some  permanent  organic  defect  or  injury 
may  make  such  affections  permanent,  as  in  cases  of  clouded 
spots  and  rings  in  the  sight,  and  moving  appearances  as  if 
of  some  discoloration  in  the  humor  of  the  lens,  known  as 


rrtg 


frr, 

EXPEEIEXCE    IN    ONE    SPACE    AND    TIME.     335 

voUtantes  muscipicli ;  or  perhaps,  for  a  few  moments  after 
having  turned  the  eye  aside  from  an  intense  light ;  or  the 
dreadful  phantoms  of  some  brain  affections,  as  in  delirium 
tremens.  In  all  such  phantasies,  we  have  as  truly  the  appre- 
hension of  a  place,  as  we  have  of  the  shades  or  colors  which 
come  and  go  as  organic  illusions ;  but  inasmuch  as  the  affec- 
tion is  simply  organic,  and  having  no  significancy  except  for 
the  self-conscious  subject  whose  organ  it  is,  such  illusions 
and  their  places  are  as  wholly  subjective  as  the  pure  dia- 
grams of  mathematics.  They  are  not  conditioned  in  their 
construction  by  any  scheme  in  the  productive  imagination, 
but  altogether  from  the  affection  in  the  internal  state  of  the 
organ  ;  and  as  these  change  or  are  permanent  from  the  state 
of  the  organ,  and  not  from  any  occasion  in  a  constant  space- 
filling substance,  so  we  never  determine  such  places  to  be  in 
one  universal  space,  nor  that  the  places  at  different  periods 
of  the  appearance  are  the  same  places.  And  much  less  do 
we  determine  the  places,  in  all  the  different  self-conscious  sub- 
jects of  such  affections,  to  be  in  the  same  universal  space. 
The  occasion  for  a  construction  in  figure  is  given,  because 
the  conditional  law  of  all  conjunction  in  unity  is  here  ;  but 
the  conditions  for  a  connection  in  the  judgment  of  an  under- 
standing are  not  here  given,  and  we  can  bring  no  such 
experience  within  the  determination  of  a  universal  space. 
All  such  facts  are  fully  explicable  from  our  hypothetical  idea, 
and  prove  it  to  be  the  law  for  the  determination  of  experience 
in  one  space. 

We  will  again  take  facts  occurring  in  reflected  vision. 
The  same  illustrations  might  be  found  in  reflected  hearing 
as  an  echo  in  the  sense ;  but  inasmuch  as  hearing  has  the 
conditions  for  only  a  very  imperfect  construction  of  space, 


330        THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    LAW. 

It  can  not  be  made  so  convenient  for  our  design.  We  have 
appearances  in  vision  from  any  medium  -that  may  subserve 
the  purposes  of  a  mirror — the  calm  surface  of  a  lake ;  the 
prepared  plate  of  glass,  with  its  quicksilver  coating  on  the 
backside ;  or  some  metal  with  its  highly  polished  surface. 
In  any  such  arrangement,  the  occasion  is  given  for  a  content 
in  the  sense,  and  the  construction  into  definite  figure  is  com- 
plete, and  readily  efiected.  In  all  such  constructions,  a 
space  is  apprehended  as  necessarily  as  the  figure  constructed 
in  the  consciousness.  But  this  space  is  significant  only  as 
relative  to  the  particular  mirror.  The  mirror  is  conditional 
for  it ;  it  is  produced  in  it,  and  destroyed  in  its  destruction. 
There  are  as  many  different  spaces  as  mirrors,  and  it  is  im- 
practicable that  there  should  be  one  universal  space  em- 
bracing all  mirrored  spaces.  Such  appearance  is  objective, 
inasmuch  as  the  mirror  is  no  part  of  the  subject-self  but 
occasions  the  same  appearance  for  all  subjects  of  self-con- 
sciousness in  the  same  circumstances  ;  and  thus  the  space  is 
objective  and  independent  of  the  peculiarity  of  the  subject 
apprehending  it,  and  is  the  same  space  for  all  self-conscious 
subjects  of  it.  But  though  objective  and  the  same  space  to 
all  that  may  apprehend  it,  yet  is  it  space  in  that  mirror  only, 
and  not  the  same  space  with  that  in  any  other  mirror ;  since 
the  removal  or  destruction  of  the  mirror  abolishes  its  space, 
without  any  interference  with  other  mirrored  spaces.  We 
may  thus  very  well  speak  of  the  definite  figures  in  the  same 
mirror  as  all  appearing  within  the  same  space,  for  there  is 
the  constant  substance  of  the  mirror  through  which  to  con- 
nect at  each  different  period  of  observation  and  for  every 
different  observer.  But  another  mirror  has  its  own  space, 
for  each  period  of  observation  and  for  every  observer ;  and 


PERIENCE    lif     ONE    SPACE    AND    TIME.    337 


it  would  demand  an  including  mirror  of  all  mirrors,  to  bring 
the  spaces  of  all  mirrors  into  one  universal  mirrored  space. 
And  precisely  because  there  is  no  such  all-embracing  sub- 
stance, which,  as  universal  mirror,  might  hold  all  mirrored 
spaces  in  itself,  there  can  be  no  determined  universal  whole 
for  the  spaces  in  all  mirrors.  It  is  thus  impossible  to  deter- 
mine the  experience  in  reflective  vision  in  one  universal 
space ;  and  this  precisely  in  conformity  with  our  hypothesis  ; 
for,  so  far  as  constant  substance  may  be  thought  in  the  mir- 
ror itself,  there  is  one  whole  of  space,  but  because  a  con- 
stant substance  underlying  all  mirrors  can  not  be  thought, 
therefore  the  spaces  in  all  mirrors  can  not  be  connected  in 
one  universal  space. 

And  still  further,  the  mirrored  space  may  be  considered 
in  reference  to  the  space  in  which  the  mirror  itself  is.  Each 
mirror  is  itself  in  a  space  and  has  its  own  space  in  itself,  and 
the  space  within  the  mirror  can  not  be  the  same  space  with 
that  in  which  is  the  mirror  itself;  for  the  removal  or  de- 
struction of  the  mirror  is  an  abolishing  of  the  space  within 
it,  but  no  interference  with  that  space  in  which  was  the 
mirror  itself.  To  make  the  mirrored  spaces  one  universal 
space  would  demand  a  universal  substance  as  constant  mir- 
ror, which  might  contain  all  others  ;  but  such  universal  mir- 
ror would  still  demand  its  own  place  in  which  it  might  be, 
and  could  never  identify  the  place  in  which  it  was,  with  the 
aniversal  mirrored  space  that  was  in  it.  Were  it  true  there- 
fore, that  an  experience  of  reflective  vision  should  be  deter- 
mined in  a  universal  whole  of  all  mirrored  spaces,  by  the 
occasion  of  an  including  substance  as  mirror  for  all  mirrors, 
it  would  still  be  impracticable  to  determine  such  experience 
in  one  universal  space ;  for  the  spaces  in  which  the  universal 

]5 


338         THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    Li    W. 

mirror  must  be,  could  not  be  thought  connected  in  one  space 
.with  that  universal  mirrored  space  which  was  in  the  mirror 
itself. 

And  still  further,  the  space  in  which  the  mirrored  ap- 
pearance is,  may  be  considered  in  reference  to  the  space  in 
which  the  phenomenon  is,  of  w^hich  the  mirrored  appear- 
ance is  the  reflection.  The  reflected  appearance  is  not  the 
same  as  the  phenomenon  reflected,  for  the  removal  of  the 
mirror  abolishes  the  first,  but  has  no  interference  w  ith  the 
last ;  and  m  the  same  way  and  for  the  same  reason,  the  space 
in  w^hich  is  the  reflected  appearance  is  not  the  same  space  as 
that  in  which  is  the  phenomenon  reflected.  Should  some 
universal  mirror,  therefore,  give  all  reflected  ajDpearance  to 
be  an  experience  in  one  universal  mirrored  space,  we  should 
not  thus  connect  this  experience  in  the  same  space  with  an 
experience  of  the  phenomena  reflected.  The  one,  though 
universal  of  its  kind,  would  still  leave  the  other  altogether 
unincluded.  The  substance  which  filled  the  space  and  oc- 
casioned the  phenomenon  reflected  would  be  no  substance 
in  the  mirrored  space  of  the  reflected  appearance,  and  on 
this  account  the  two  spaces  can  not  be  connected  in  a  judg- 
ment of  the  understanding,  into  the  same  space.  Thus,  in 
all  the  many  and  very  diversified  fxcts  of  reflected  vision, 
we  find  them  all  held  in  coUigation  by  our  hypothetical  idea, 
as  their  actual  law. 

We  will,  in  the  last  place,  take  the  facts  which  occur  in 
open  vision.  The  illustration  will  be  the  same  in  any  organ- 
ism, that  may  give  occasion  for  definite  construction  in 
space;  but  as  the  organ  of  vision  gives  such  occasion  the 
most  perfectly,  the  facts  connected  with  vision  become  the 
most  appropriate  for  our  purpose.     Mere  appearance  hi  con- 


EXPERIENCE     IN     ONE     SPACE     AND    TIME.    339 

Bciousness  necessitates  the  apprehending  of  a  space ;  but  mere 
appearance  does  not  give  an  occasion  for  deteiminhig  all  as 
in  one  space.  When  I  simply  perceive  the  stars  in  their 
appearances,  I  see  them  to  be  in  a  space ;  and  I  may  make 
constructions,  that  shall  give  me  their  bearing  and  distance 
from  each  other  in  that  space ;  but  something  more  than 
appearance  must  be  given,  as  occasion  for  connecting  them 
in  thought  in  the  one  universal  space.  I  can  not  perceive  in 
the  sense,  but  only  judge  in  the  understanding  that  all  ap- 
pearance is  in  the  one  space.  If  I  sail  on  a  smooth  lake  in 
a  clear  night,  I  may  perhaps  be  wholly  unable  to  perceive 
the  surface  of  the  water,  so  perfectly  does  it  reflect  all  that 
is  above  it.  In  such  a  case  I  shall  perceive  the  appearance 
of  the  stars  above  and  beneath,  and  so  flir  as  perception 
is  concerned  I  am  ensphered  in  a  heaven  of  stars,  and  the 
mere  appearance  can  not  determine  for  me  which  hemi- 
sphere is  direct  and  which  reflected  appearance.  It  is  only 
where  in  the  understanding  I  fix  the  constant  space- 
filling substance,  that  I  come  to  determine  this  one  to  be  the 
existing  heaven  and  the  other  its  perfectly  mirrored  i-efleo- 
tion.  And  my  determination  of  appearances  in  this  one 
space  is  only  as  I  think  it  to  be  filled  Avith  constant  sub- 
stance. The  space-filling  substance  of  the  stars  has  been 
constant  through  the  day,  though  the  more  intense  sunlight 
has  wholly  absorbed  their  phenomenal  being ;  and  when 
they  appear  again  on  the  succeeding  evening,  because  their 
appearance  is  occasioned  by  the  same  constant  substance,  I 
judge  them  to  be  the  same  stars,  and  in  the  same  space. 
So,  also,  when  the  voyager  has  sailed  to  the  opposite  side  of 
the  globe  and  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  equator,  he  per- 
ceives a  heaven  in  which  the  stars  have  wholly  another  ap- 


840        THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    LAW. 

pearance ;  but  he  judges  them  all  to  be  m  the  same  one 
space,  not  because  he  so  perceives  them,  but  because  he  con- 
ceives a  filling  of  space  by  some  existing  substance  from  the 
place  of  the  stars  in  one  hemisphere  to  the  place  of  the  dif- 
I'erent  stars  in  the  other.  A  chasm  of  all  substantial  being 
as  notional  space-filling  force  would  cut  off  all  communica- 
tion from  one  phenomenal  world  to  the  other,  and  we  should 
be  unable  to  determine  them  in  the  same  one  space,  but  only 
as  each  in  its  own  space. 

All  the  facts,  both  as  negative  of  a  connection  in  a  no- 
tional and  as  positive  for  such  connection,  come  together  in 
our  hypothesis — that  we  never  determine  experience  in  one 
universal  space  except  in  the  thought  of  a  connective  no- 
tional, and  always  when  we  have  such  connection.  No  fact 
can  be  found  in  any  experience  determined  in  one  whole  of 
space,  that  may  exclude  itself  from  the  colligation  of  this 
universal  Law. 

2.  Experience  in  Universal  Time. — T  can  have  no  ap- 
prehension of  the  passing  of  a  time  except  through  some 
modification  of  my  internal  state.  When  that  varied  modi- 
fication is  going  on,  a  time  is  apprehended  as  going  on  in 
my  consciousness ;  as  that  is  quickened  or  retarded  in  its 
flow,  the  apprehension  of  an  elapsing  time  is  faster  or 
slower ;  and  as  all  such  modification  of  inner  state  ceases  in 
consciousness,  all  apprehension  of  a  time  ceases  in  conscious- 
ness likewise.  It  is,  thus,  ever  the  fact  that  some  modify- 
ing process  is  going  on  in  the  internal  state,  and  this  appre- 
hended in  the  light  of  consciousness,  or  we  do  not  con- 
sciously apprehend  that  a  time  is  passing ;  and  that  we  do 
apprehend  the  elapsing  of  a  time,  in  conformity  with  the 
flow  of  such  varied  modifications  of  inner  sense.     This  fact 


EXPERIENCE    IN    ONE    SPACE    AND    TIME.    341 

mil  in  our  apprehension  will  facilitate  the  acquisition,  and 
ready  application,  of  many  other  facts  to  our  present  pur- 
pose. 

We  ^y'l\\  Jirst  gather  some  facts  in  purely  subjective  expe- 

ience.  There  are  many  instances  of  an  experience  going  on 
wholly  within  our  own  minds,  and  in  which  we  are  our- 
selves our  own  world.  The  inner  sense  alone  is  active  in 
perceiving  and  constructing  a  train  of  passing  events  as  they 
lake  place  wholly  within  our  own  subjective  being.  This 
may  be  a  passing  of  one  emotion  after  another,  or  one 
thought  after  another,  or  perhaps  a  varied  flow  of  thoughts, 
emotions,  and  purposes  w^hich  stand  only  in  our  conscious- 
ness and  pass  only  in  our  inner  sense,  while  all  attention  to 
any  thing  external  is  withdrawn.  In  such  a  case  there  is 
the  consciousness  of  an  elapsing  time,  but  as  it  has  been  ap- 
prehended only  in  relation  to  the  coming  and  departing  of 
the  inner  events,  its  correspondence  with  the  time  which  has 
been  going  on  in  the  flow  of  passing  events  external  to  us 
has  not  been  at  all  regarded  ;  and  as  we  have  had  no  appre- 
hension of  the  external  events  and  the  time  of  their  flow,  it 
is  impossible  that  we  should  put  one  within  the  other 
and  determine  them  to  the  same  one  universal  time. 
We  are  obliged,  when  we  are  roused  from  our  subjective 
thinking,  to  recur  to  some  standard  which  indicates  how  the 
flow  of  passing  outward  events  has  progressed,  and  thus 
determine  the  period  of  our  musing  by  putting  it  within  a 
definite  period  of  an  objective  flowing  of  events ;  and  we 
are  sometimes  greatly  surprised  at  the  ascertamed  disparity 
between  them. 

We  may  suppose  some  pure  geometrician  as  Euclid  or 

Archimedes,  or  some  Newton  or  La  Place  constructing  his 


342  THE    UNDEKSTANDING    IN    ITS    L  AW   . 

pure  diagrams  of  the  heavenly  movements,  and  so  wholly 
mtent  on  the  intuitive  processes  which  are  going  on  in  his 
own  pure  creations,  that  the  phenomenal  events  of  an  outer 
world  are  utterly  lost  to  the  consciousness.  To  such  a  mind, 
absorbed  in  its  own  action,  there  will  be  a  progressive  modi- 
fication of  the  internal  state  as  the  process  of  pure  construc- 
tion and  intuition  goes  onward,  and  thus  consciously  a  time 
is  passing ;  but  the  only  time  apprehended  is  that  in  whicli 
this  inner  agency  may  be  brought,  by  constructing  into 
definite  periods  the  instants  in  which  it  has  stood  or  the 
moments  through  which  it  has  passed.  Were  there  no 
other  conception  of  the  modification  of  an  inner  sense  but 
such  as  Avas  subjectively  experieiiced  in  its  own  constructing 
agency,  w^e  should  have  a  time  but  it  would  be  our  own 
subjective  time  only ;  nor  should  we  be  able  to  say  that  it 
could  be  at  all  within  any  universal  time  of  an  objective 
duration.  When  the  philosopher  awoke  from  his  profound 
study  and  went  out  from  the  consciousness  of  an  inner  sense 
to  the  consciousness  of  an  outer  movement,  he  would  be 
wholly  unable  to  identify  the  subjective  succession  with  an 
objective  duration,  except  as  he  could  fix  on  some  constant 
substantial  being  as  a  source  of  successive  changes  in  the 
alterations  of  its  phenomena,  and  from  that  determine  how 
an  objective  time  had  passed  since  his  subjective  time  had 
been  going  on,  and  thus  putting  the  period  of  the  latter 
within  the  definite  period  of  the- former. 

While  it  thus  is  manifest  that  time  subjectively  can  have 
no  identification  in  an  objective  time ;  except  through  the 
determination  of  the  one  within  the  other  by  the  connec- 
tions of  phenomenal  events  in  a  perduring  substantial  source, 
80  it  is  the  more  manifest  that  the  mere  passing  of  a  time 


EXPERIENCE    IN    ONE    SPACE    AND    TIME.     343 

in  subjective  consciousness  can  never  be  determined  in  any 
universal  time.  My  inner  agency  in  its  modifications  of  my 
internal  state  is  subject  to  perpetual  interruptions.  When 
it  is  in  process,  then  a  time  is  passing ;  when  it  is  inter- 
rupted, then  is  the  flow  of  time  in  my  subjective  conscious- 
ness broken  up  ;  and  it  is  not  possible  that  I  should  conjoin 
the  periods  as  in  one  time  across  these  breaches.  Within 
my  subjective  experience  there  has  been  only  passing 
periods  as  I  have  been  conscious  of  the  varied  internal 
modifications  of  state,  and  those  separated  by  intervals 
when  no  subjective  time  was  passing ;  and  surely,  without 
some  perduring  source  marking  its  changes  in  perpetually 
altered  phenomena,  and  which  I  can  never  find  in  my  sub- 
jective being,  I  can  never  connect  these  separate  periods 
across  their  fathomless  voids  of  all  time,  and  determine  them 
to  belong  to  one  universal  whole  of  all  time.  To  my  sub- 
jective experience  they  are  so  many  separate  times.  And  I 
have  nothing  in  me,  as  the  subject  of  their  self-conscious 
apprehension,  by  which  I  can  connect  them  all  in  one 
universal  time. 

Other  subjects  of  self-consciousness  may  by  their  own 
inner  agency  be  modifying  their  own  internal  states,  and 
coming  to  the  consciousness  that  a  time  is  thus  passing  on 
in  their  inner  sense ;  but  there  is  nothing  to  connect  the 
periods  in  their  interruptions  into  one  time  in  each  self-con- 
scious subject,  much  less  any  thing  to  connect  all  theii 
periods  into  one  universal  time  for  them  all.  There  must  be 
a  perduring  source,  whose  changes  shall  be  marked  in  con- 
tinually coming  and  departing  phenomena  which  arise  as 
events  from  it,  and  thus  give  a  continually  flowing  time 
objectively   as   common   standard   for   all   their   subjective 


344  THE     UNDERSTANDING    IX    ITS    LAW. 

times ;  and  only  thus  may  all  be  determined  in  tht  same 
miiversal  time.  No  one  subject  can  connect  his  own  periods 
across  their  frequent  interruptions  by  any  permanent  standard 
in  his  own  subjective  being.  And  neither  one  nor  all  can 
bring  the  periods  of  their  separate  selves  into  one  time,  from 
any  common  standard  found  in  their  subjective  being,  nor  is 
this  in  fact  ever  done  but  by  referring  them  all  to  some  per- 
manent objective  source  of  changes.  There  would  be  as 
many  times  as  there  are  subjects  of  self-consciousness,  did 
we  not  determine  our  own  and  each  others  times  by  some 
permanent  objective  notional,  w^hich  as  substantial  source 
connects  the  changes  in  their  periods  and  gives  one  time  for 
us  all. 

We  may  next  take  facts  in  our  subjective  organism.  If 
we  confine  the  modification  of  our  internal  state  to  the  com- 
ing and  departing  appearances  or  the  motions  in  some  delu- 
sive organic  affections,  we  shall  attain  a  large  class  of  facts 
for  our  purpose.  The  deceptive  phantoms  before  mentioned 
in  some  diseased  or  deranged  organ — as  the  colors  from  the 
pressed  eye-ball,  or  a  ringing  sound  in  the  ear,  or  a  pain  in 
the  nerves — would  give  occasion  for  a  constructing  agency 
and  thus  for  a  modification  of  internal  state,  and  thereby 
secure  the  consciousness  of  a  passing  time.  But  inasmuch 
as  this  sensation  originates  in  the  organism,  and  gives  occa- 
sion for  the  self-conscious  possessor  of  the  organ  only  to  be 
thus  internally  affected,  the  passing  of  the  time  can  be  of  no 
Bignificancy  beyond  his  subjective  being,  and  as  exclusively 
his  own  time  as  above  in  the  purely  mental  movements.  So 
far,  therefore,  as  there  are  such  periods  in  organic  experience, 
they  may  furnish  their  facts  for  our  purpose. 

Perhaps  the  facts  of  dreaming  may  here  give  the  best 


EXPERIENCE    IN    ONE    SPACE    AND    TIME.      345 

Jlustration.  A  dream  may  be  taken  as  a  sensation  in  our 
subjective  organism  generally,  inducing  such  intellectual 
construction  as  the  state  of  the  organism  occasions ;  and 
such,  though  only  of  the  reproductive  imagination,  do  yet 
induce  a  modification  of  the  internal  state,  and  thus  the  con- 
scious passing  of  a  time.  But  none  of  us  can  bring  the 
times  of  our  dreams  into  one  connected  whole  of  a  dreaming 
lime  for  ourselves  subjectively,  much  less  put  all  the  times 
of  all  dreaming  in  all  persons  into  any  one  time,  or  identify 
the  times  passing  in  our  dreams  v^dth  our  objective  universal 
time,  only  as  we  have  some  substantial  source  for  phenom- 
enal successions,  and  subject  the  times  of  our  dreams  to  this 
one  common  standard  which  marks  the  progress  of  one 
universal  time  for  all. 

We  may  lastlij  take  the  facts  of  any  7'eal  2)^^enome7ial 
experience.  My  perceptions  of  phenomena  through  any 
organism  are,  so  far  as  they  are  appearance  in  my  conscious- 
ness, subjective  only.  The  color,  the  sound,  the  touch,  the 
taste,  and  the  smell,  are  all  in  me  subjectively ;  and  the 
modification  which  their  distinction  and  construction  in  con- 
sciousness occasions  in  my  internal  state  gives  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  passing  time,  but  this  phenomenal  passing  in  its 
periods  is  in  my  subjective  consciousness  only.  I  am  not 
conscious  that  such  modifications  and  such  periods  are  pass- 
ing in  others.  This  would  demand  that  the  others  con- 
sciousness should  become  phenomenal  in  my  consciousness. 
I  have  my  own  phenomenal  coming  and  departing  in  con- 
sciousness, and  another  subject  may  have  his ;  but  no  con- 
sciousness of  either  can  put  the  interrupted  periods  of  one 
subject  into  one  time,  much  less  the  periods  of  the  two  sub- 
jects of  self-consciousness  into  one  common  time.     Every 


346         THE     UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    LAW. 

subject  judges  that  what  has  occasioned  his  perception  of 
the  phenomena  is  the  same  permanent  substance  occasion- 
ing the  Uke  perceptions  for  all ;  that  the  changing  events 
originate  in  a  source  which  is  a  common  occasion  for  per- 
ceiving the  same  series  of  events  by  all ;  and  that  the  occa- 
sions for  modifications  of  internal  state  are  given  alike  to 
all ;  and  thereby  the  periods  are  the  same  to  all,  and  are 
connected  in  the  same  one  time  for  all.  The  substantial 
time-keeper  gives  the  phenomena  of  moving  hands  over  the 
dial-plate,  and  the  tick  of  the  seconds,  and  the  periods  of 
them  in  their  series,  as  a  standard  for  common  experience ; 
and  although  the  perceptions  are  only  subjective  and  sepa- 
rate in  the  sense,  yet  the  permanent  sameness  of  substan- 
tial source  in  the  thought  connects  them  all  in  one  nature, 
and  in  one  time.  Thus,  in  all  the  above  facts  is  the  colliga- 
tion of  our  hypothesis  verified  as  universal  Law. 


SECTION    III 


THE  DETERMINATION  OF  AN  EXPERIENCE  IN  ITS  PARTICULAR 
PLACES    AND   PERIODS. 

All  experience  is  but  a  medley  of  appearing  and  dis- 
appearing phenomena,  except  the  phenomena  are  determined 
in  their  particular  places  and  periods.  And  that  we  do 
judge  phenomena  to  be  each  in  its  own  place  and  period  in 
miiversal  space  and  time,  and  determine  their  relative  bear- 
ings and  distances  from  each  other,  needs  no  illustration ; 
since  our  experience  has  no.  connection  in  itself  as  a  whole 
any  further  than  such  determination  of  particular  phenom- 


EXPERIENCE    IN    PLACE    AND    PERIOD.      347 

eiia  in  space  and  time  is  effected.  The  point  for  investigation 
is,  to  find  the  Law  in  the  facts  for  such  particular  determin- 
ation. Will  our  hypothetical  idea  bind  up  within  itself  all 
the  facts  of  a  determination  of  particular  phenomena  to 
their  places  in  space  and  their  periods  in  time  ?  If  so, 
the  induction  will  evince  this  to  be  their  law ;  and  thus  that 
the  understanding  does  determine  the  particulars  of  an 
experience  in  place  and  period,  in  accordance  with  our  a 
prioi'i  idea  of  an  understanding  already  attained.  We 
shall,  as  before,  take  the  particular  determinations  in  space 
and  in  time  separately. 

1.  Particular  determination  of  places  in  space. — All  the 
phenomena  of  experience,  we  judge  to  be  in  one  universal 
space  ;  and  the  law  for  this  as  already  found  in  the  facts  is, 
the  connection  of  these  phenomena  in  a  constant  space-filling 
substance.  We  shall  now  show,  that  the  law  for  2\\  partic- 
ular determination  i7i  space  is  the  fixing  of  the  phenomena 
in  their  relative  spaces,  by  their  inherence  in  the  constant 
space-filling  substance. 

In  all  determination  of  particular  phenomena  in  space 
.  there  must  be  some  movement.  The  place  occupied  must 
be  determined  in  bearing  and  distance  from  other  places, 
and  we  never  take  such  bearings  and  distances  without  an 
intellectual  moving  agency  which  in  its  progress  constructs 
the  i^laces  and  the  lines  between  them.  But  no  movement 
can  be  apprehended,  except  in  reference  to  somewhat  that  is 
permanent.  I  only  determine  that  I  move,  by  a  reference 
of  myself  to  something  which  does  not  move.  It  thus  be- 
comes the  condition  in  all  determination  in  place,  that  we 
have  some  permanent  stand-point. 

But  I  find  no  permanent  stand-point  in  my  subjective 


348        TUE    UNDER  STA.NDING    IN    ITS    LAW. 

being.  When  I  am  conscious  of  an  inward  constructing 
agency  producing  pure  figures  in  space,  the  movement  is 
apprehended  only  in  the  passing  of  the  agency  throughout 
the  diverse  points  in  the  primitive  intuition.  Subjectively, 
my  pure  diagrams  have  a  relative  bearing  and  distance  from 
each  other,  but  no  determined  relation  to  the  places  of  any 
phenomena  in  universal  space.  Kor,  from  my  subjective 
sensations  any  more  than  from  my  subjective  pure  intui- 
tions, do  I  attain  to  any  permanent  stand-point.  If  I  press 
my  eye-ball  and  fill  the  organ  in  consciousness  with  the  floav 
ing  fantastic  colors,  they  may  have  bearings  and  directions 
from  each  other,  but  they  give  no  permanent  point  for  de- 
termining themselves  in  universal  space.  And  this  would 
be  precisely  the  same  with  our  real  sensations,  were  only 
the  subjective  sensations  regarded.  That  I  had  a  real  sen- 
sation in  touch,  and  this  continued  so  that  in  my  conscious- 
ness I  attained  the  construction  of  some  definite  figure  and 
thus  a  place  in  space ;  yet,  if  the  perception  in  sensation 
were  all  that  was  given,  I  should  not  be  able  at  all  to  deter- 
mine where  in  the  universal  space  that  place  was,  nor  what 
direction  and  distance  from  the  place  of  any  other  construc- 
tion by  the  touch.  The  result  would  be  the  same  in  the 
construction,  whether  the  organ  of  touch  moved  over  the 
resistance  or  the  resistance  moved  over  the  organ,  and  the 
mere  sensation  would  give  no  permanent  stand-point  from 
whence  to  take  any  bearings  and  distances.  Sensation  can 
give  only  the  subjective ;  and  the  subjective  can  never  at- 
tain to  any  permanency  from  whence  to  determine  particu- 
lar places  in  space.  All  the  facts  of  our  merely  subjective 
experience  are  bound  in  this  law,  that  we  can  dctermino 
them  only  in  a  subjective  space,  for  that  only  ha?  p  6rm«> 


EXPERIEN^CE    IN    PLACE     AND    PERIOD.    349 

nency  in  reference  to  our  subjective  self;  but  what  relation 
this  bears  to  any  places  in  universal  space  we  can  not  deter- 
mine, precisely  because  we  can  attain  no  permanent  objec- 
tive. 

But,  if  now  I  take  my  own  body,  and  think  all  the  phe- 
nomena which  it  occasions  in  the  sense  to  inhere  in  it  as  a 
constant  space-filling  substance,  and  thus  that  this  body  per- 
manently occupies  a  place ;  I  can  in  this  determine  the  bear- 
ing and  distances  of  all  these  phenomena  inhering  in  the 
permanent  substance  of  my  own  body,  and  say  what  are 
their  relations  in  their  places  to  each  other.  The  direction 
and  distance  of  the  appearing  head  from  the  appearing  foot 
through  any  sense  of  vision  or  of  touch  may  readily  be  de- 
termined ;  because  there  has  been  given  the  permanent 
space-filling  substance  in  the  understanding,  which  as  fixed 
position  in  objective  space  occasions  its  own  phenomena  to 
appear  in  their  own  relative  places,  as  inhering  in  it  each  in 
its  own  place.  Just  so  fir  as  you  fill  a  space  with  the  per- 
manent substance,  you  determine  the  relative  places  of  its 
phenomena ;  for  so  far,  and  only  so  far,  you  have  the  hypo- 
thetical law  for  it. 

But  such  determination  of  the  relative  places  of  the  dif- 
ferent phenomena  of  my  own  body,  can  determine  nothing 
of  the  relations  to  any  places  in  universal  space  beyond  it. 
I  can  not  determine  my  relative  position  in  the  room  I  oc- 
cupy, by  any  permanent  filling  of  a  space  ^vith  the  substance 
of  my  own  body  alone.  That  will  only  avail  to  determine 
the  relative  places  of  the  phenomena  in  my  own  body,  and 
not  the  places  of  any  phenomena  beyond  the  space  so  occu- 
pied. I  must  first  judge  such  phenomena  to  be  the  inhering 
qualities  of  a  space-filling  substance  beyond  and  enclosiug 


860        THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    LAW. 

iiiy  body  ;  and  I  may  then  very  well  determine  the  relative 
places  of  the  phenomena  in  my  own  body  with  those  in  the 
substance  of  the  wall  of  the  room  in  their  particular  places. 
All  the  hypothetical  conditions  are  so  far  given,  and  so  far  a 
determined  experience  in  particular  places  is  effected.  But 
still,  all  determination  of  place  is  confined  to  the  space  of 
the  room,  and  we  can  not  yet  say  where  in  space  the  room 
itself  is.  I  look  from  the  window  of  my  room,  and  various 
phenomena  appear  to  be  moving  past  the  space  of  the  room 
which  the  window  occupies;  but  I  can  not  determine 
whether  the  space  of  my  room  and  myself  in  it  are  moving 
past  the  outer  phenomena,  or  whether  the  phenomena  are 
moving  past  the  window  of  my  room.  My  room  may  be 
the  cabin  of  a  steamboat,  and  I  readily  determine  the  rela- 
tive positions  of  all  the  places  in  the  room  ;  but  I  can  not 
yet  say  where  in  universal  space  the  phenomena  beyond  are, 
in  reference  to  the  place  of  my  room.  I  may  find  them  to  be 
the  phenomena  of  another  steamboat,  but  I  can  not  yet  say 
whether  they  are  permanent  and  we  are  moving,  or  the  con- 
trary ;  or  whether  both  are  not  moving  in  opposite  direc- 
tions ;  or,  perhaps  both  in  the  same  direction,  though  one 
be  more  rapid  than  the  other,  and  thus  the  more  rapid  pass- 
ing by  the  other.  Until  I  can  attain  some  permanent  space- 
filling substance  in  the  judgment  of  the  understanding — as 
a  tree,  a  house,  a  hill  upon  the  shore — which  I  at  once 
recognize  as  occupying  permanent  place  still  beyond,  I  can 
not  determine  the  relative  bearings  of  any  phenomena  ex- 
ternal to  my  own  room.  The  permanent  substance  on  shore 
gives  occasion  for  determining  the  direction  and  bearing  of 
all  the  phenomena  intervening. 

But  facts  in  the  same  direction  will  still  further  confirm 


EXPERIENCE  IN  PLACE  AND  PERIOD.  351 

oiii  hypothesis  to  be  the  universal  law ;  for  this  permanent 
substance  on  shore  may  be  still  transcended.  We  can  not 
tell  where  in  space  the  phenomena  on  the  shore  are,  except 
as  we  have  extended  our  thought  to  the  earth  itself,  as  per- 
manent space-filling  substance,  and  determined  its  phenom- 
ena to  be  connected  in  it  as  permanent  ground  for  their  ap- 
f)earance,  and  thus  as  fixed  at  determinate  bearings  and  dis- 
tances from  each  other  in  their  particular  places.  And  then, 
il  we  would  know  the  place  in  space  of  the  earth  itself,  we 
have  the  higher  stand-point  to  attain  in  the  permanent 
space-filling  substance  of  the  sun,  which  determines  all  the 
phenomena  of  its  planets  and  their  satellites  in  their  relative 
positions.  And  then,  yet  again,  this  planetary  system  can 
be  determined  in  its  place  in  space  only  by  a  higher  perma- 
nent substance  in  the  fixed  stars,  which  considered  as  occu- 
pying each  the  same  place  in  space  beyond  the  region  of 
our  planetary  system,  may  give  the  same  law  for  the  under- 
standing to  determine  the  })lace  of  the  system  as,  in  the 
first  illustration  given,  the  place  of  any  part  of  my  own 
body.  And  then,  whether  all  the  fixed  stars  are  indeed 
fixed  in  the  same  invariable  place  in  universal  space,  or  are 
not  perhaps  themselves  planets  carrying  each  their  unseen 
systems  around  some  higher  center,  can  only  be  determined 
by  attaining  such  phenomena  as  evince  their  inherence  in 
such  higher  space-filling  substance.  Our  hypothetical  prin- 
ciple is  thus  a  universal  law.  The  notion  of  a  permanent 
space-filling  substance,  connecting  all  the  phenomena  in  their 
relative  places  through  their  inherence  in  this  substance, 
must  be  given,  or  no  determination  of  experience  in  partic- 
ular places  in  space  is  ever  effected;  and  at  once,  and 
always,  where  such   connective  is  given,  the  determining 


352         THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    LAW. 

judgment  in  the  understanding  is  readily  and  confidently 
made. 

The  point  for  an  absolute  determination  of  all  places  in 
universal  space  would  be  some  fixed  substantial  center, 
which  never  changes  its  place  by  a  revolution  around  some 
higher  center ;  from  which  all  centrifugal  force  goes  out,  and 
to  w^hich  all  gravitating  force  tends ;  and  thus  making  the 
universe  of  nature  to  be  one  sphere  of  substantial  being 
with  its  inhering  phenomena  ever  occupying  as  a  whole  the 
same  place  in  universal  space.  Shall  we  ever  determine 
such  fixed  center,  which  unmoved  itself  yet  ever  determines 
all  motion  relatively  to  itself?  Surely  not  from  experience. 
No  experience  can  possibly  rise  to  the  absolute  in  anything ; 
therefore  can  never  attain  to  an  absolute  determination  of 
space.  It  can  only  determine  the  relative  places  w^ithin  the 
space  which  is  occupied  by  a  permanent  substance,  and  in 
which  the  inhering  phenomena  are  fixed  in  their  connection 
to  their  respective  places.  If  we  were  placed  upon  the  sup- 
posed absolute  center  to  which  all  motion  would  have  ulti- 
mate reference,  it  would  be  impossible  for  us  to  determine 
in  experience  our  steadfast  position.  The  understanding 
may  think  such  a  permanent  stand-point ;  but  place  the 
sense  there  and  it  could  not  see  if  it  stood,  or  whether  it 
moved  about  some  higher  unseen  center. 

2.  Particular  determinations  of  periods  in  Time. — 
Time  has  three  modes  of  relation  to  phenomena,  and  we 
need  to  gather  the  facts  in  each,  and  see  if  they  all  come 
within  the  circumscription  of  our  hypothesis  for  determin- 
ing particular  periods  in  time. 

(1 .)  Facts  in  the  determination  of  particular  periods  in 
the  perpetuity  of  time. — This  general  fact  is  every  where 


BXPERIEXCE    IN    PLACE    AND    PERIOD.      353 

apparent,  that  there  is  not  a  perpetual  apprehending  of  a 
time  in  any  self-consciousness.  When  there  is  a  progressive 
modification  of  internal  state,  we  may  be  conscious  that  a 
time  is  passing ;  but  when  there  is  any  interruption  of  the 
conjoining  agency,  there  is  an  interruption  in  our  conscious 
apprehending  of  a  time.  Such  interruptions  are  frequently 
occurring  in  every  experience.  The  intellectual  agency  is 
often  so  completely  absorbed  in  other  constructions,  that  we 
take  no  note  of  time.  There  are  also  reveries  and  musing 
meditations,  paroxysms  of  delirium  and  fainting  fits  and  the 
stupor  of  disease,  and  more  especially  the  occurrence  of 
sleep  from  the  necessities  of  our  animal  constitution ;  in  all 
of  which,  the  consciousness  of  an  elapsing  time  is  inter- 
rupted. To  our  subjective  being  these  intervals  in  our  con- 
sciousness have  no  significancy,  and  are  a  void  of  time  as 
truly  as  a  void  of  all  inner  affection.  Such  chasms  in  any 
elapsing  time  effectually  break  up  in  our  consciousness  the 
perpetuity  of  time.  It  is  nevertheless  a  fact  that  we  some- 
how determine  time  to  be  perpetual,  and  to  have  been  con- 
tinually passing  during  these  interruptions  in  our  conscious- 
ness of  all  time,  so  that  we  as  truly  determine  a  period  to 
our  unconsciousness  as  to  our  conscious  exercises.  This  can 
be  no  intuition  of  the  sense,  but  must  somehow  be  a  discur- 
sive judgment  formed  in  the  understanding.  If  I  am  sail- 
ing with  the  current  of  a  stream  in  my  conscious  apprehen- 
sion, and  am  then  wholly  unconscious  of  any  such  movement 
through  sleep  or  otherwise,  and  again  awake  in  conscious- 
ness of  the  similar  fact  that  I  am  sailing  with  the  current  of 
a  river,  certainly  my  interrupted  apprehensions  can  not  be 
so  brought  together,  or  the  chasm  of  consciousness  so 
bridged  across,  that  I  can  perceive  that  I  have  been  perpet* 


354         THE     UNDEKSTANDING    IN    ITS    LAW. 

ually  sailing  with  the  current,  nor  that  thtj  currents  in  the 
two  periods  of  apprehension  are  the  same  perpetual  stream. 
If  I  determine  such  facts  at  all,  it  must  be  through  some 
discursive  judgment  in  the  understanding.  I  must  think 
the  connections  of  these  experiences  through  some  media, 
which  as  data  lie  beyond  the  subjective  experience  itself. 
And  here  all  the  facts,  in  our  determination  of  the  inter- 
rupted periods  of  our  experience  to  be-  in  perpetual  time, 
will  be  brought  into  complete  colligation  by  our  hypotheti- 
cal condition  of  a  perduring  source,  as  the  time-filling  sub- 
stance to  which  the  phenomena  in  their  different  periods  all 
adhere. 

Thus,  after  a  period  of  activity  in  consciousness,  I  fall 
asleep  in  my  study-chair.  After  this  interruption  of  con- 
sciousness, I  again  awake  and  would  fain  determine  the  con- 
tinuity of  time  in  this  interval  when  time  had  no  significancy 
to  me.  Certainly  I  do  not  attempt  to  make  my  intellectual 
agency  pass  through  this  chasm,  and  thereby  construct  the 
periods  in  consciousness  that  I  may  perceive  a  time  has  been 
perpetually  passing.  I  have  no  diversity  of  instants  in  that 
interval  of  unconsciousness  which  I  may  conjoin  in  unity, 
and  by  this  bring  in  conjunction  the  periods  before  and 
after,  and  thus  make  the  time  perpetual.  I  take  a  very  dif- 
ferent course ;  laying  aside  all  function  of  intuition  I  seek 
to  connect  the  periods  only  by  a  discursive  operation  of  the 
understanding.  I  find  some  permanent  source  of  varying 
phenomena  which  has  existed  through  the  interval,  and 
whose  coming  and  departing  events  have  had  their  periods 
in  this  interval,  and  which  have  thus  connected  the  periods 
through  this  subjective  void  of  all  time ;  and  I  at  once  con- 
clude that  time  has  been  perpetual.     Any  such  perduring 


EXPESIENCE    IN    PLACE    AND    PERIOD.      355 

source  for  coming  and  departing  events  will  give  a  datum 
for  such  a  discursive  judgment,  and  all  the  facts  of  a  deter- 
mination of  the  perpetuity  of  time  through  such  a  chasm 
will  invariably  rest  upon  it. 

Thus,  I  may  take  my  watch,  which  has  been  a  perduring 
source  of  varying  events  in  the  movements  of  the  different 
hands  over  the  dial-plate,  or  the  undulations  of  air  from  the 
stroke  at  each  swing  of  the  balance-wheel.  Those  events 
ns  phenomena  have  not  appeared  in  my  experience,  yet  has 
the  occasion  for  such  phenomena  perpetually  existed,  and  I 
must  thus  think  them  connected  in  their  continual  periods, 
varying  as  the  changes  in  the  source  went  on ;  and  in  the 
judgment  of  the  understanding,  I  at  once  determine  that  a 
time  has  been  perpetually  passing,  though  in  my  subjective 
consciousness  it  had  no  significancy.  I  conclude  thus,  only 
in  a  discursive  process  that  has  gone  from  period  to  period 
through  the  notion  of  a  perduring  source  in  the  understand- 
ing. As  another  fact,  I  may  look  at  the  falling  sands 
through  the  permanent  waist  of  the  hour-glass  ;  and  though 
I  have  been  all  unconscious  of  the  varying  phenomena,  j'^et 
is  this  perduring  source  of  such  successive  appearances  for 
any  perceiving  sense  that  might  have  been  present  in  con- 
sciousness, a  sufficient  datum  for  the  understanding  to  de- 
termine that  the  occasions  have  had  their  periods,  and  that 
the  time  has  been  perpetually  passing.  The  shadow  of  the 
gnomon  on'  the  sun-dial  may  give  another  fact  within  the 
same  conditions.  The  perduring  source  as  notional  in  the 
understanding  has  been  in  existence  through  the  interval  of 
my  unconsciousness,  and  given  occasion  for  a  continual  per- 
ception of  the  moving  shadow  to  any  sense  which  might 
have  received  the  content  and  have  had  its  perpetuated  time 


356         THE    trXDEESTANDING    IN    ITS    LAW. 

through  all  the  moments ;  and  the  void  of  time  in  conscious- 
ness is  thus  a  perpetuation  of  time  in  the  understanding. 
Only  by  such  connection  of  adhering  occasions  in  a  perdur- 
ing  source,  do  we  determine  any  particular  period  to  be  in  a 
perpetual  time. 

And  when  no  artificial  chronometers  are  at  hand,  the 
same  conditions  are  given  in  a  thousand  ways,  each  of  which 
would  be  a  new  fact  coming  under  the  same  hypothesis. 
Thus,  I  awake,  and  find  the  sunshine  from  my  window  has 
changed  its  position ;  or,  perhaps  the  twilight  of  evening 
has  succeeded  to  the  clear  daylight  when  my  sleep  com- 
menced ;  or,  the  diminished  warmth  of  my  room  from  the 
neglected  and  expiring  fire  in  the  stove ;  or,  the  diminished 
light  and  exhausted  oil  in  my  lamp ;  any  one  of  these  or 
numberless  other  such  occasions  give  the  datum  in  a  per- 
manent source  of  continual  variations  for  the  determination 
in  the  understanding,  that  a  time  has  been  perpetually  pass- 
ing through  all  intervals  of  our  unconsciousness.  So  in  that 
void  of  all  time  to  us  which  precedes  our  existence  as  self- 
conscious  beings,  or  that  which  is  yet  to  come  beyond  the 
present  instant  in  consciousness,  we  readily  determine  a  per- 
petuity to  time  and  embrace  all  the  experience  of  humanity 
in  one  perpetuity  of  duration.  The  permanent  substances 
which  give  their  phenomenal  brightness  in  the  heavens  are 
lasting  sources  of  adhering  events  for  a  continual  experience, 
and  thus  become  data  for  the  determination  of  a  perpetual 
time,  which  flows  on  in  uninterrupted  periods,  independent 
of  all  consciousness  of  it.  They  are  thus,  what  their  Maker 
in  the  beginning  designed  they  should  be,  "  lights  in  the 
firmament  of  heaven  to  divide  the  day  from  the  night,  and 
that  they  may  be  for  signs  and  for  seasons,  and  for  days  and 


EXPERIENCE    IN    PLACE    AND    PERIOD.         857 

years."  As  far  as  we  may  think  the  perduring  source  to 
exist  with  its  occasions  for  the  adhering  phenomena  to  come 
and  depart,  so  far  we  can  carry  out  our  determinations  of 
particular  periods  in  a  perpetuity  of  time,  and  give  the 
chronology  of  nature ;  but  when  that  notion  as  necessary 
condition  of  all  connection  in  time  drops  from  the  under- 
standing, the  vacant  thought  has  nothing  for  its  support, 
and  all  determination  of  perpetuity  to  time  is  wholly  im- 
practicable. 

We  thus  affirm,  that  all  the  facts  in  an  actual  determina- 
tion of  particular  periods  to  perpetual  time,  come  completely 
Avithin,  and  are  wholly  concluded  by  our  hypothesis — that 
the  connections  of  adhering  events  in  one  perduring  source 
is  the  necessary  condition  for  all  such  determination  of  an 
experience  in  perpetual  time.  We  have  in  this  no  longer  a 
mere  hypothesis,  but  an  actual  universal  Law. 

(2.)  Facts  in  the  determination  of  particular  periods  in 
the  miiform  succession  of  time. — We  judge  time  to  be  in 
uniformly  progressive  flow ;  that  its  stream  does  not  turn 
back  upon  itself,  nor  wheel  itself  about  in  one  perpetual 
cycle ;  and  that  it  is  not  by  desultory  leaps,  nor  paroxysms 
of  quickened  and  retarded  movement.  But  when  only  the 
subjective  apprehension  of  a  time  is  given,  we  determine 
nothing  in  reference  to  the  ordered  progress  of  its  move- 
ment. Our  dreams  may  give  an  apprehension  of  successive 
periods  in  any  direction ;  and  our  memories  may  follow 
back  the  tide  of  events,  or  begin  at  any  past  point  and 
follow  down  again  the  old  stream  of  our  experience.  Were 
there  nothing  but  our  subjective  constructions  of  periods, 
our  apprehension  of  time  must  be  backward  or  forward, 
according  to  the  contingent  modifications  of  our  internal 


358         THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    LAW. 

state  by  the  constructing  movement.  There  is  nothing  in 
the  subjective  consciousness,  which  may  serve  as  a  perma- 
nent from  which  to  determine  the  absolute  direction  or  the 
rapidity  of  the  current  of  time.  How,  then,  do  we  deter- 
mine the  particular  periods  in  time  to  be  in  an  ordered  and 
uniform  succession  ?  The  facts  will  all  be  bound  up  in  our 
hypothetical  condition — that  an  ordered  series  of  causation 
alone  gives  the  datum  for  the  determination  of  particular 
periods  as  uniformly  progressive. 

Thus,  as  before,  when  I  awake  from  my  sleep,  and  would 
fain  know  how  much  of  time  has  passed,  I  need  to  deter- 
mine, not  only  as  before  that  there  has  been  a  perpetual 
passing  of  time  and  which  is  effected  by  any  perduring 
source  of  adhering  events,  but,  moreover,  now  I  need  to 
determine  that  this  perpetual  passing  of  a  time  has  been  in 
an  ordered  and  imiform  succession.  A  perpetual  movement 
from  period  to  period  might  be  as  the  pendulum  to  and  fro  ; 
or,  as  the  wheel  on  its  axis  revolving  without  progress  ;  or, 
as  the  waves  on  the  surface  of  the  lake  varied  indefinitely ; 
and  there  would  be  the  notion  of  one  perpetual  source  in 
which  adhering  events  in  their  periods  were  continually 
recurring,  and  we  might  determine  that  all  the  periods 
belonged  to  a  perpetual  time  ;  but  w^e  must  have  some  other 
data  for  determining  that  all  the  periods  are  in  one  unifoi-m 
progress,  as  an  ordered  and  even  succession  of  time.  When 
I  look  at  my  w^atch  to  determine  how  much  time  has  passed, 
the  datum  which  I  get  for  my  judgment  is  not  merely  that 
the  substance  is  source  for  perpetual  coming  and  departing 
events,  but,  moreover,  is  cause  that  the  events  can  be  only 
in  one  order  and  in  uniform  rapidity  of  succession.  It  is  the 
abiding  source  and  its  events  which  suffices  for  perpetuity 


t 


EXPERIENCE    IN    PLACE    AND    PERIOD.         359 

of  time,  but  it  is  the  series  of  cause  and  effect  which  can 
alone  suffice  for  the  determination  of  an  ordered  succession 
of  time.  If  the  watch  might  go  either  backwards  or  for- 
wards, or  in  a  progressus  of  irregular  rates  of  movement, 
there  would  be  no  datum  for  determining  the  onward  flow 
of  time,  and  none  for  determining  uniformity  of  process  by 
it.  Thus  with  the  hour-glass,  the  sun-dial,  or  any  other 
artificial  chronometer ;  we  take  the  notion  not  only  of  a 
perduring  source,  but  also  of  an  ordering  cause,  necessita- 
ting the  source  to  give  its  altered  events  in  uniform  succes- 
sion. So  far  as  we  attain  such  a  datum,  we  possess  a  chro- 
nometer ;  and  so  far  as  there  is  any  deficiency  in  these  condi- 
tions, the  capability  of  an  accurate  determination  of  suc- 
cessive time  is  defective.  I  may  know  that  my  stove  has 
been  gradually  diminishing  in  warmth  w^hile  I  was  sleeping, 
and  thus  the  cause  of  the  gradual  settling  of  the  mercury  in 
my  thermometer ;  and  in  this  case  I  could  determine  the 
movement  of  the  mercury  and  its  periods  to  be  in  one  direc- 
tion, and  so  far  it  would  be  chronometer  for  the  progess  of 
time.  But,  I  must  also  have  the  datum  of  uniformity  of 
causation,  before  I  can  make  it  chronometer  for  the  rapidity 
of  time.  Any  notion  of  causation  is  sufficient  in  its  varying 
events  to  determine  a  progressus  of  time,  but  only  uniformity 
in  the  variations  can  make  it  practicable  for  us  to  determine 
the  uniform  successions  of  periods  in  time. 

Thus,  although  we  readily  determine  that  time  is  a  pro- 
gressus and  never  a  regressus,  we  attain  to  only  a  compara- 
tive and  not  an  absolute  determination  of  the  even  flow  of 
time.  We  find  it  necessary  to  bring  every  chroncmeter  to 
some  comparative  standard  of  an  ordered  series  f  causa- 
tion.    The  great  standard  is  the  revolution  of  thk    'suth  on 


360        THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    LAW. 

its  axis.  Taking  the  earth  as  perduring  source  of  the  varied 
phenomena,  and  the  cause  of  its  revolutions  as  ordering  the 
same  in  progressive  and  equable  successions,  we  have  the 
great  chronometer  by  which  all  artificial  time-keepers  are  to 
be  regulated.  As  this  revolution  of  the  earth  divides  itself 
into  the  two  portions  of  light  and  darkness,  so  it  has  been 
found  convenient  to  give  to  the  ordinary  chronometers  two 
revolutions  to  one  revolution  of  the  earth,  thereby  separately 
measuring  the  day  and  the  night.  An  hour-glass  may  take 
any  equable  division  of  this  as  a  twelfth,  and  be  truly  an 
hour-glass ;  or  a  twenty-fourth,  and  be  a  half  hour-glass. 
But  in  all  the  datum  is  the  same — a  causation  ordering  suc- 
cessive phenomena  in  accordance  progressively  and  equably, 
with  the  revolutions  of  the  earth.  Arid  now,  that  this  is 
perpetually  progressive  is  readily  manifest.  The  causation 
is  ever  onward  and  not  backward.  One  point  of  the  earth's 
surface  comes  under  the  meridian  after  another,  and  these 
points  can  not  alternate  in  the  periods  of  their  coming  to 
the  meridian,  each  with  each.  We  thus  determine  the 
periods  to  be  progressive  and  never  regressive.  But  inas- 
much as  the  movement  is  a  revolution,  and  each  day  repeats 
its  causal  variations  in  the  same  order ;  how  do  we  deter- 
mine that  time  has  any  other  progress  than  a  repetition  of 
cycles  ?  The  facts  bring  us  again  within  the  circumscrip- 
tion of  the  same  hypothesis.  Had  we  no  causation  but  that 
which  orders  our  diurnal  revolution,  we  should  not  be  com- 
petent to  determine  our  regular  progressus  in  time,  and  each 
day  would  be  to  us  the  old  day  over  again ;  as  with  only  a 
whirling  balloon  in  the  open  air  of  heaven,  each  turn  would 
to  the  aeronaut  be  in  the  same  place.  But  as  a  sight  of  the 
objects  on  the  earth  would  give  the  data  for  determining 


EXPERIENCE    IN    PLACE    AND    PERIOD.         361 

that  his  revolutions  varied  from  place  to  place,  so  do  the 
thousand  onward  moving  events  give  the  data  for  determin- 
ing that  the  diunial  revolutions  of  the  earth  vary  in  tlieir 
periods,  and  are  each  a  time  further  on  in  the  opening  of 
eternity  than  the  last.  The  on-going  of  the  objective  events 
in  nature  are  right  onward  from  day  to  day,  and  not  wheeled 
into  cycles  as  the  earth  rolls  on  her  axis,  and  thus  each  day 
though  a  periodic  revolution  has  a  different  period  from  its 
predecessor.  Were  all  the  causes  in  nature  only  repeating  a 
certain  circuit,  and  coming  about  again  as  in  a  vortex  only 
to  go  over  again  the  same  effects  in  the  same  order,  their 
experience  could  only  induce  the  repetition  of  the  same  cir- 
cuit of  inner  modifications,  and  time  could  be  determined 
only  as  a  perpetual  revolution  in  the  same  cycle.  So  also, 
should  nature  at  any  moment  cease  the  onward  development 
of  cause  and  effect  and  turn  directly  back  upon  her  order 
of  connections,  making  every  where  what  had  been  the  con- 
sequent to  an  antecedent  to  become  the  antecedent  to  the 
same,  the  determination  of  time  could  only  be  that  of  a 
regressus,  and  yesterday  would  return  again  to  our  experi- 
ence, and  life  roll  itself  backward  through  the  consciousness 
in  an  exactly  reversed  order  of  periods  as  of  phenomena. 
But,  while  the  earth  repeats  her  revolutions,  the  causes  in 
nature  do  not  turn  from  a  direct  on-going  in  their  developed 
effects,  and  we  in  these  attain  our  data  for  determining  that 
every  recurring  day  is  a  new  day  further  on  in  the  period 
of  time,  and  not  the  same  day  repeated,  nor  a  return  again 
to  the  old  day  which  had  passed.  The  successive  progress 
of  time  is  thus  readily  determined  from  the  successive  on* 
going  of  events. 

But  an  absolute  equality  in  the  onward  progress  of  time 
16 


362  THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    L  AW 

is  not  thus  determined,  nor  indeed  can  in  any  way  be  det-er- 
mined  from  any  possible  experience.  Here  are  facts  so 
much  aside  from  the  class  before  given,  and  which  would  so 
little  have  been  expected  to  come  within  the  same  connec- 
tion, and  yet  which  do  surprisingly  evince  themselves  to 
stand  bound  in  the  same  hypothesis,  that  they  may  be  well 
considered  as  an  example  of  a  consilience  of  facts  leaping 
within  our  hypothetical  condition  from  a  distance — and  thus 
add  the  stronger  confirmation  that  our  hypothesis  is  the 
universal  law  for  all  determination  of  successive  time  in  an 
understanding.  Thus,  I  may  very  well  determine  that  the 
pulsations  at  my  wrist  go  on  in  an  ordered  succession,  for 
I  have  a  perpetual  cause  in  the  palpitating  heart  for  suc- 
cessive pulsations  in  their  progressive  periods.  But  I  can 
not  say  that  the  pulsations  and  their  periods  are  equable  in 
their  successions,  precisely  because  I  can  not  determine  that 
the  development  of  the  causation  into  effect  is  equable.  The 
phenomena  as  efiects  come  into  experience,  but  the  Hotional 
cause  can  never  come  into  experience.  I  may  trace  the 
phenomenal  pulsations  up  to  the  alternate  action  of  the 
heart  in  systole  and  diastole,  and  determine  that  this  con- 
traction and  dilation  is  in  successive  progression,  for  I  think 
the  same  cause  for  this  as  phenomenal  effect  that  I  do  for 
the  pulsations;  but  yet  it  is  only  the  phenomenal  that  has 
come  within  consciousness,  while  the  causal  efiiciency  is 
necessarily  notional  in  the  understanding  and  can  never  be 
made  appearance  in  the  sense.  I  have  no  means,  therefore, 
of  determining  the  absolute  equality  of  the  succession  in  the 
cause,  and  can  only  attempt  such  determination  of  equable 
Buccession  in  the  effects.  I  compare  the  phenomenal  effects 
with  those  in  another  series  of  cause  and  effect.    I  find,  on 


EXPERIENCE    IN    PLACE    AND    PERIOD.         363 

comparison  with  the  on-going  }3henomena  of  my  watch,  that 
the  pulsations  for  one  minute  are,  say  seventy-five ;  and,  in 
some  minute  of  another  hour,  I  find  them  to  be  less  or  more, 
say  seventy  for  the  less  and  eighty  for  the  more  numerous. 
How  shall  I  determine  which  successive  periods  are  the  true 
successions  in  time  ?  Only  by  taking  the  causation  in  the 
one  case  or  the  other  to  be  an  assumed  equable  efficiency, 
and  thus  judging  the  phenomenal  effect  of  that  to  be  equa- 
ble in  its  periods,  and  then  determining  the  phenomenal 
effects  in  their  successive  periods  in  the  other  compared  with 
that  as  a  standard.  If  my  watch  is  taken  as  having  kept  on 
its  equable  efficiency  in  developing  its  successive  effects,  I 
shall  determine  that  the  pulsations  have  been  faster  or  slower 
in  the  different  periods,  from  some  inequality  of  causation 
in  the  heart. 

But,  how  determine  that  the  causal  efficiency  of  the 
watch  has  been  equable  ?  I  may  compare  it  with  the  falling 
sands  of  an  hour-glass,  or  the  oscillations  of  a  pendulum 
regulating  the  descent  of  the  same  weight,  and  may  assume 
that  the  efficiency  of  gravitation  is  an  equable  cause  in  the 
same  place  on  the  earth,  and  thus,  if  the  watch  agrees 
thereto,  that  its  efficiency  has  been  uniform.  But,  if  now  I 
should  compare  that  watch,  thus  tested,  with  a  sun-dial 
through  the  year,  I  should  find  perpetual  inequalities  of 
movement  faster  and  slower  than  the  dial,  varying  in 
extremes  of  fifteen  minutes,  and  making  the  difference 
between  mean-time  and  apparent-time  on  any  given  day  in 
the  year.  How  shall  I  determine  where  is  the  equable 
efficiency  now  ?  The  watch  has  been  tested  by  the  constant 
efficiency  of  gravitation  in  nature,  and  yet  it  disagrees  with 
the  revolutions  of  the  earth  in  their  periods,  which  are  thp 


364        THE     (JNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    LAW. 

phenomenal  effects  of  the  same  causal  efficiency.  Is  the 
same  cause  in  nature  contradictory  in  its  own  effects  ?  But 
all  these  conflicting  phenomena  leap  together  within  the 
same  conditions,  when  we  know  that  the  earth  is  running 
its  elliptical  course  about  the  sun,  and  varying  its  rate  of 
movement  proportionally  from  perihelion  to  aphelion,  and 
that  thus  its  equal  revolutions  on  its  axis  will  bring  the 
same  place  ou  the  earth  to  its  meridian,  at  different  inter- 
vals, in  different  parts  of  its  orbit,  and  to  just  the  degree 
and  on  the  very  days  of  the  year  indicated  by  the  facts  of 
disagreement  between  the  clock  and  the  sun-dial ;  and  that, 
therefore,  those  different  days  in  the  year  are  just  so  much 
longer  or  shorter  in  their  periods  in  absolute  time.  We 
determine  the  equable  succession  of  time  on  the  hypothesis 
only  that  the  higher  causation  of  gravity,  in  its  force  from 
the  sun,  is  equable  in  its  production  of  effects  at  equal 
distances. 

It  might  here  be  said,  that  for  all  which  has  yet  been 
determined  of  the  equable  succession  of  time,  there  may 
notwithstanding  be  as  wide  variations  between  a  correct 
chronometer  and  some  years,  as  between  this  chronometer 
and  some  days  in  the  year.  And  so  it  may  be.  And  if  this 
were  so  found  as  a  fact  from  any  comparison  of  widely  dif- 
ferent years  with  the  same  accurate  time-keeper  of  centuries, 
it  would  only  the  more  confirm  our  hypothesis ;  for  we 
could  only  determine  the  equalization  of  the  discordant 
times,  by  taking  the  higher  stand-point  of  causation,  and 
thinking  our  sun,  with  its  whole  attendant  system  of  worlds, 
to  be  wheeling  on  in  its  grand  ellipse  around  this  causal  effi- 
ciency in  one  of  the  foci  of  its  orbit,  and  conditioning  the 
game  disparity  of  years  in  this  great  cycle,  as  before  of  days 


EXPERIENCE    IN    PLACE    AND    PERIOD.         365 

in  the  annual  circuit  of  the  earth  in  its  orbit.  Nor  should 
we  then  be  any  nearer  the  attainment  of  an  absolute  mea- 
sure of  time.  The  only  position  for  such  determination 
would  be  the  absolute  center  of  all  gravitation,  fixed  in  its 
one  position  in  the  immensity  of  space,  and  ensphering  and 
revolving  all  phenomenal  being  about  itself  And  if  we 
stood  at  just  such  central  point  with  an  eye  to  perceive  the 
rolling  universe  about  us,  how  should  we  see  that  our  own 
position  did  not  move  in  absolute  space  ?  How  see  that  the 
revolutions  were  not  unequal  in  absolute  time  ?  Causation 
may  be  producing  the  faint  pulsations  of  an  artery  or  wheel- 
ing the  universe  on  its  center  ;  but  in  all  cases  it  is  the  con- 
nected series  which  determines  the  periods  to  be  an  ordered 
progress  in  time,  and  the  even  working  of  the  efiiciency 
which  determines  the  equable  progress  in  the  successive 
periods.  We  have,  therefore,  a  sufficiently  broad  induction 
of  facts  to  determine  that  our  hypothetical  condition  is  a 
universal  Law,  and  needs  to  be  held  as  hypothesis  no 
longer. 

(3.)  Facts  in  the  determination  of  particular  periods  in 
simultaneous  time. — We  have  varied  phenomena  each  in 
their  own  periods,  and  which  are  alternately  appearing  and 
disappearing  in  the  sense,  so  that  when  one  appears  the 
other  has  disappeared,  and  when  the  last  appears  again,  the 
first  has  also  again  disappeared ;  and,  though  they  are  never 
given  in  consciousness  together,  we  yet  determine  them  to 
be  together  in  the  same  time.  This  can  not  be  from  think- 
ing them  to  be  the  adhering  events  of  the  same  source  :  for 
that  can  only  determine  them  in  the  judgment  as  perpetual 
in  the  same  one  whole  of  universal  time,  not  that  they  are 
together  in  the  same  one  period  of  universal  time.     Nor  can 


SQQ         THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    LAW. 

it  be  from  thinking  them  to  be  the  dependent  effects  of  the 
same  cause ;  for  that  can  determine  them  only  as  successive 
in  the  universal  time,  and  thus  they  can  not  be  simultaneous. 
Since,  then,  the  perception  never  brings  them  into  the  con- 
scious experience,  simultaneously,  and  no  datum  yet  consid- 
ered gives  them  in  the  judgment  of  the  understanding  as 
simultaneous,  the  inquiry  yet  to  be  made  is — under  what 
law  do  these  facts  of  a  determination  to  particular  periods 
as  simultaneous  events  arrange  themselves  ?  Our  hypothet- 
ical condition  is — that  they  must  be  connected  in  the  cotn- 
7iiunion  of  a  reciprocal  inflaenc(.  This  last  induction  of 
facts  will  exhaust  all  our  hypotheses  for  determhiing  partic- 
ular periods  in  time :  and  if  the  hypothetical  condition  be 
found  to  be  the  actual  Law,  our  task  will  be  completed. 

Thus,  when  I  have  the  phenomena  of  continuous  motion 
over  the  graduated  points  on  the  dial-plates  of  two  clocks, 
in  such  a  position  that  when  I  perceive  one  the  phenomena 
of  motion  over  the  other  is  not  perceived,  and  thus,  alter- 
nately ;  I  may  say  of  each  when  thought  to  be  events  from 
a  perduring  source,  that  their  periods  must  belong  to  one 
perpetual  time ;  and  also,  when  thought  to  be  effects  from 
an  ordering  series  of  causation,  that  the  periods  in  each  must 
be  in  progressing  succession ;  but,  as  I  can  not  see  the  phe- 
nomena of  motion  in  both  together,  I  can  not  perceive  the 
moments  of  motion  in  both  to  be  simultaneous  ;  nor  can 
the  notions  of  perduring  source  and  perpetual  cause  enabl 
me  at  all  to  determine,  that  the  motions  in  both  pass  any 
given  points  in  both  at  the  same  moment.  But  if  now 
these  phenomena  of  motions  over  the  graduated  points  of 
the  two  dial-plates  are  apprehended  as  on  opposite  sides  of 
a  tower,  and  that  they  are  the  two  faces  of  the  same  chapel- 


EXPERIENCE    IN    PLACE    AND    PERIOD.       367 

clock,  and  have  each  a  communion  reciprocally,  so  that  one 
can  not  be  modified  in  its  motion  but  the  same  modification 
must  be  communicated  also  to  the  other ;  I  have  then  a  da- 
tum in  the  understanding  by  which  I  may  well,  discursively 
through  this  datum,  determine  that  their  movements  are  si- 
mnltaneous.  With  such  a  reciprocity  of  influence  I  can,  and 
without  such  I  can  not,  and  in  point  of  fact  it  is  only  by 
such  that  I  do,  determine  any  phenomena  of  alternately  per- 
ceived movements  to  be  simultaneous. 

I  may  touch  the  opposite  scales  of  a  balance,  or  the 
counter-weights  suspended  on  each  side  of  a  pulley  alter- 
nately— and  the  same  will  also  apply  to  alternate  vision,  or 
perception  through  any  organ  of  sense — and  my  apprehen- 
sion may  be,  that  when  one  scale  or  one  weight  has  been 
raised  the  other  has  been  found  lower  down,  or  the  reverse ; 
and  if  I  had  nothing  more  than  the  alternate  perceptions  in 
the  positions  of  the  phenomena,  I  could  not  deterniine 
whether  these  alternations  of  place  were  successive  or  simul- 
taneous. The  interval  in  perception  will  admit,  that  the 
displacement  should  be  either  in  a  successive  or  a  simultane- 
ous time.  If  I  should  somehow  get  the  notion  of  two  alter- 
nate causes  each  producing  its  oAvn  effect,  one  lifting  and 
the  other  depressing  the  weights ;  this  notion  of  alternate 
cause  in  the  understanding  would  necessitate  the  judgment, 
that  the  displacement  was  also  alternate  and  thus  successive ; 
but  when  the  notion  of  the  communion  of  reciprocal  influ- 
ence is  assumed  in  the  understanding,  so  that  the  action  and 
reaction  must  synclironize,  the  judgment  must  conclude  in 
the  simultaneous  displacement  of  the  weights.  And  pre- 
cisely the  same  hypothesis  applies  where  no  phenomenal 
connection,  like  the  scale-beam  or  the  pulley-rope,  brings 


368       THE    UNDERSTANDING    IN    ITS    LAW. 

the  communion  within  the  intuitions  of  any  organism  of 
sense. 

Two  voyagers,  at  opposite  sides  of  the  earth,  find  each  a 
high  tide  in  the  ocean,  but  surely  no  human  perception  can 
settle  the  determination  that  they  are  contemporaneous. 
An  accurate  chronometer,  when  the  two  men  should  subse- 
quently meet  and  compare  their  experience,  might  be  the 
medium  for  determining  that  the  tides  were  simultaneous ; 
but  the  accuracy  of  the  chronometer  must  ultimately  be 
tested  by  its  comparison  with  the  action  and  reaction  of 
gravitating  bodies  in  the  diurnal  revolution  of  the  earth. 
And  such  notion  of  the  reciprocal  influence  of  gravitating 
forces,  acting  and  reacting  upon  the  ocean  according  to  the 
positions  of  the  sun  and  moon,  exclusive  of  the  chronometer, 
would  be  sufficient  for  determining  the  simultaneousness  of 
the  tides  by  each  man  at  once  and  in  his  own  place.  This 
wholly  imperceptible  force  of  gravity  is,  as  notion  in  the 
understanding  alone,  an  efficient  connective  of  the  phenom- 
ena ;  and  as  valid  a  condition  for  the  judgment  of  contem- 
porary being  in  the  tides,  as  if  it  could  be  made  phenome- 
nal like  the  scale-beam.  The  reciprocity  of  influence  must 
produce  the  tides  coetaneously.  And  precisely  this  medium 
of  communion  in  the  reciprocal  action  of  gravitation  per- 
vades the  universe.  It  is  the  grand  and  only  law,  as  notion 
in  the  understanding,  by  which  we  can  determine  the  times 
of  any  phenomena  of  revolutions,  and  transits,  and  eclipses, 
and  occultations,  and  full  and  change  through  all  the  heav- 
enly bodies.  What  is  now  going  on  in  regions  of  space  un- 
seen, coetaneously  with  the  phenomena  which  now  appear; 
and  what  events  in  all  past  history  were  contemporaneous 
in  occurrence  with  some  remarkable  phenomenon  in  the 


EXPERIENCE    IN    PLACE    AND    PERIOD.      3G9 

heavens — as  an  eclipse,  or  the  full  moon — and  thus  often  the 
settlement  of  long  Imes  of  events  in  disputed  chronology ; 
and  what  phenomenal  occurrences  in  the  revolutions  of  the 
earth,  the  tides  of  the  ocean,  the  appearances  in  the  heav- 
ens, and  even  the  coming  and  departing  of  comets,  simulta- 
neously with  each  other ;  all  are  determined  on  the  hypo- 
thesis alone,  of  the  fixed  connections  through  all  the  phe- 
nomena of  nature  of  a  universal  and  everlasting  communion 
in  the  reciprocities  of  causation,  which  modifies  all  from 
each  and  each  from  all  simultaneously.  Cut  off  in  thought 
the  departing  comet  from  this  reciprocal  communion,  and 
you  have  cut  ic  off  from  all  connection  in  the  understanding  ; 
and  you  can  no  more  determine  its  sameness  of  time  with 
the  phenomena  of  nature,  than  you  can  its  directions  and 
distances  in  space  from  the  places  occupied  in  nature.  Its 
law  of  all  connection  is  gone,  and  it  is  no  longer  a  part  of 
our  system,  nor  is  it  any  more  even  a  determinate  part  of 
the  universe.  It  is  somewhere  its  own  universe,  in  its  own 
space  and  its  own  time ;  but  it  is  not  ensphered  and  turning 
in  unity  with  universal  nature  in  its  space  and  its  time. 

It  is,  then,  sufiiciently  shown  in  the  facts,  that  the  hypo- 
thesis of  a  communion  in  the  notion  of  a  reciprocal  influence 
for  the  determination  of  phenomena  as  snnultaneous  in 
their  periods  in  time,  is  no  longer  hypothesis  but  a  veritable 
Law  in  the  facts.  And  inasmuch  as  we  have  now  found 
the  law  in  the  facts  comprehensively  for  all  determination 
of  phenomena  in  place  and  in  period,  and  can  now  see  that 
the  law  in  the  facts  is  precisely  the  correlative  of  our  a 
priori  idea  of  an  understanding ;  we  may  unhesitatingly 
affirm,  that  here  is  a  true  and  valid  psychological  science. 
We  know  the  Understanding  completely,  both  in  its  tran 
scendental  Idea  and  in  its  empirical  Law. 


APPENDK  TO  THE  UNDERSTANDINO. 


AN  ONTOLOGICAL  DEMONSTEATION  OF  THE  VALID  BEING  OF 
THE  NOTIONAL. 


The  doctrine  of  immediate  perception  of  objects  was 
with  Reid  in  this  form,  that  an  impression  on  the  organ 
mysteriously  induced  a  state  of  mind  that  was  a  conception 
of  the  thing  itself,  and  accompanied  with  the  necessary  be- 
lief that  the  object  had  a  real  outer  existence.  With 
Brown,  the  state  of  mind  in  an  organic  sensation  came 
immediately  within  consciousness,  and  this  was  known 
directly,  but  the  external  cause  was  known  only  as  correla- 
tive to  the  organic  impression.  Sir  Wilham  Hamilton 
makes  perception  to  be  the  product  of  a  "  presentative  fac- 
ulty" and  to  be  directly  and  immediately  cognizant  of  ob- 
jects, but  in  this  peculiar  manner.  Causation  is  always 
duplex,  involving  action  and  reaction.  The  object  and  the 
organ  are  thus  necessarily  present  and  in  contact  in  all  cases 
of  organic  impression.  The  whole  exterior  of  the  nervous 
system  is  open  to  touch,  and  this  nervous  organization  is  v 
compound  of  body  and  mind,  and  is  one  of  the  elements  in 
the  cause  of  perception  and  the  outer  matter  in  contact 
with  it  is  the  other  element.  All  perception  is  thus  at  last 
resolved  into  touch.  At  the  point  of  contact  the  mind  and 
its  object  are  together,  and  the  intellect  immediately  appro- 


YALID    BEING    OF    THE     L>rOTIONAL.  371 

hends  the  outi/ess  and  the  extension  of  the  object,  and  by 
muscular  pressure  immediately  knows  the  hardness  or 
roughness  of  the  object.  But  the  human  mind  can  know 
nothing  that  does  not  thus  make  itself  present  to  it  in  nerv- 
ous contact.  The  theory  can  never  explain  vision  or  hear- 
ing to  be  immediately  cognizant  of  outer  objects,  even  if  it 
were  allowed  to  be  true  for  touch,  for  only  rays  of  light 
come  in  contact  with  the  optic  nerves,  and  only  waves  of 
air  with  the  auditory  nerves,  and  all  we  could  thus  know 
would  be  the  color  of  the  light  and  the  sound  of  the  air, 
not  at  all  the  extension  or  other  qualities  of  the  outer  and 
distant  object.  And  even  for  touch,  it  must  assume  that 
mind  itself  becomes  extension  in  the  extended  nervous  or- 
ganism, for  it  knows  the  extension  of  the  object  only  from 
knowing  its  own  extension  in  the  extended  nervous  system. 
Mind  and  nerve  must  be  one,  or  else  the  unextended  mind 
could  not  know  the  extended  nervous  body,  and  thereby 
know  the  extended  outer  object. 

But  Hamilton  is  himself  a  thorough  Kantian  in  reference 
to  time  and  space.  He  holds  space  to  be  "  a  mere  subjec- 
tive state,"  and  wholly  "  an  d  priori  form  of  the  Imagina- 
tion." Could,  then,  the  mind  immediately  know  the  object 
as  extended,  this  extension  could  only  be  in  subjective 
space,  and  it  would  be  utterly  impossible  to  determine  the 
olvjects  of  different  persons  to  any  one  common  space  for 
all.  It  would  leave  out  all  data  for  any  possibility  of  prov- 
ing valid  being  to  the  subjective  world  of  mind  and  the  ob- 
jective world  of  matter.  Our  Faith  might  be  assumed  to 
pass  on  beyond  subjective  knowledge,  and  admit  of  object- 
ive being  in  one  common  space  and  common  time  for  all,  but 
our  Philosophy  can  never  attain  such  a  station.     And  oui 


372   APPENDIX  TO  THE  UNDERSTANDING, 

faith  can  only  be  resolved  into  a  divine  constitntion ;  so 
God  has  made  us  to  believe^  bnt  it  can  not  be  said  that  so 
God  has  made  mind  and  matter  to  he. 

McCosh  clearly  sees  that  Hamilton  has  really  yielded  np 
all  knowledge  of  an  outer  world  and  played  entirely  into 
the  hands  of  the  skeptic,  and  goes  back  to  the  assumption 
without  explanation  that  we  immediately  perceive  things 
themselves,  and  that  all  qualities,  hot  and  cold,  good  smells 
and  bad  smells,  etc.,  are  already  in  the  things  themselves 
and  not  the  affections  which  the  things  produce  in  us. 

By  none  of  these  views  of  perception,  and  of  knowledge 
only  through  perception  and  in  consciousness,  is  it  possible 
to  deliver  ourselves  from  the  skeptic  who  presses  his  doubts 
of  the  validity  of  immediate  perception  for  things  in  them- 
selves, or  if  things  themselves  are  assumed  to  be  given  by 
perception  to  the  consciousness,  who  presses  his  doubts  of 
the  validity  of  any  such  assumed  consciousness.  The  per- 
ception and  the  consciousness  are  in  these  cases  the  ultimate, 
and  there  is  no  possible  way  for  philosophically  determining 
anything  about  perception  and  consciousness  themselves. 
For  suppose  we  push  this  skeptic  fully  out  to  the  extreme 
conseqence  of  denying  validity  to  consciousness,  not  from 
any  arbitrary  questioning,  but  from  logical  deductions  or 
direct  opposing  reasons,  and  force  him  to  admit,  as  cer- 
tainly we  may,  notwithstanding  all  his  reasons,  that  his  con- 
scious experience  of  the  fact  of  his  doubting  is  itself  no 
more  valid  than  the  other  facts  in  experience  which  ho 
assumes  to  doubt,  and  thereby  oblige  him  to  admit  that  he 
must  doubt  the  fact  of  his  doubting,  and  is  wholly  skeptical 
in  reference  to  the  fact  of  his  own  ske[)ticism,  what  then  ; 
have  we  thus  demonstrated  to  him  that  he  does  know? 


VALID    BEING    OF    THE    NOTIONAL.  873 

Have  we  not  rather  pushed  him  further  back  into  the  dark- 
ness of  a  deeper  doubt,  and  made  his  skepticism  all  the  more 
incorriorible  ?  He  is  forced  to  admit  that  he  doubts  whether 
his  own  skepticism  has  any  reality,  and  that  nothing  can  be 
known,  not  even  the  fact  that  he  doubts  every  thing.  But 
is  here  such  a  reductio  ad  absurdimi  as  must  legitimate  an 
opposite  conclusion?  Can  this  prove  that  he  does  know? 
or  is  there  here  any  subversion  of  the  ground  of  his  skepti- 
cism ?  Certainly,  such  crowding  him  with  his  own  admis- 
sions is  only  pushing  him  further  from  all  hope  of  coming  to 
the  light,  or  that  to  him  any  light  can  be.  If  you  can  not 
meet  his  skepticism  in  its  reasons,  you  only  make  him  a 
more  confirmed  and  incorrigible  skeptic  by  driving  him  out 
to  the  extremes  of  his  own  logic. 

We  have  now  a  position  where  we  can  fairly  and  fully 
meet  and  annul  all  skepticism  of  the  valid  being  of  mind 
and  of  matter  in  its  very  sources,  and  annihilate  the  false 
data  from  whence  it  assumes  to  question  perception  and 
consciousness.  Materialism,  Idealism  in  its  double  form, 
and  universal  Pyrrhonism  may  now  clearly,  fairly,  intelligi- 
bly, be  met  and  conquered.  We  shall  find  Materialism  and 
Idealism  to  be  simply  defective,  true  so  far  as  they  go  but 
false  because  they  are  each  only  half-truths,  and  that  univer- 
sal Pyrrhonism  is  wholly  error,  and  founded  on  a  sophisti- 
cal illusion.  The  materialist  knows  matter  but  doubts  of 
the  being  of  mind ;  the  idealist  admits  mind  to  be  but 
doubts  the  being  of  the  material ;  and  the  Pyrrhonist 
doubts  all,  fo#  he  deems  man's  original  and  fundamental 
faculties  for  knowing  to  be  self-contradictory.  It  is  compe- 
tent now  to  demonstrate  Idealism  against  Materialism,  and 
Materialism  against  Idealism,  and  thus  prove  a  dualism  of 


8V4      APPENDIX    TO    THE    U  N  D  E  E  S  T  A  N  DI  N  O  . 

both  mind  and  matter,  and  also  competent  to  expose  and 
remove  the  sophism  on  which  a  necessary  and  universal 
skepticism  has  been  maintained. 

1.  The  Demonstration  ofldealistn  against  Materialism. 
The  scholastic  dictmn  nihil  est  in  intellect'u^  quod  non  prius 
fuit  in  sensu,  is  the  starting-point  to  the  logical  skepticism 
which  doubts  the  knowledge  of  all  but  material  being.  The 
logical  jDrocess  may  be  from  the  origin  to  the  completed 
perception,  or  from  the  full  perception  back  to  the  origin. 
In  the  first  logical  form  it  goes  thus — all  knowledge  must 
be  through  the  organic  sensation  and  the  relative  modifica- 
tions which  may  be  by  reflection  given  tj  the  objects  of 
sense.  But  all  the  sensation  must  be  induced  by  something 
that  impresses  and  thus  affects  the  organic  sensibility ;  and 
as  this  impression  is  from  matter  without  and  made  upon  a 
material  organism,  it  is  not  j^ossible  to  trace  the  material 
action  beyond  the  material  affection.  In  the  second  logical 
process  it  goes  thus — inasmuch  as  whatever  is  in  the  intel- 
lect has  first  been  in  the  sense,  and  the  organic  sense  can  be 
impressed  and  affected  only  by  matter,  therefore  all  that  is 
known  may  be  referred  back  to  some  material  impression 
upon  a  material  organ.  Any  knowing  of  an  object  which  is 
not  from  and  of  the  material  world  must,  therefore,  be  taken 
as  a  delusion,  and  the  object  a  mere  chimera. 

But  now,  instead  of  the  outer  material  impressing  the 
organic  material,  and  inducing  a  sensation  in  the  organ  as 
first  and  only  condition  for  knowing,  we  have  found  that  an 
intellectual  agency  may,  solely  from  an  anticipation  of  con- 
tent in  the  sense,  determine  all  that  is  possible  to  be  given 
in  the  sense ;  and  also,  that  from  the  very  conception  of  a 
force  in  space,  the  intellect  may  itself  determine  all  that  sub- 


VALID    BEING     OF    THE    NOTIONAL.  3^6 


stauces  and  causes  can  connect  in  a  judgment  of  the  under- 
standing ;  and  that  both  in  the  sense  we  perceive,  and  in  the 
understanding  we  judge,  only  precisely  according  to  these? 
determining  conditions.  Hence  it  demonstratively  follows, 
that  the  material  is  not  conditional  for  all  knowing,  but  that 
the  intellect  from  its  own  anticipation  of  sensible  content, 
and  its  own  conception  of  notional  substance  and  cause,  and 
with  no  content  in  an  organism  from  without,  can  proceed 
at  once  to  the  knowledge  of  what  it  is  possible  for  a  sense  and 
an  understanding  to  accomplish.  There  is  an  actual  know- 
ing that  is  wholly  independent  of  all  organic  affection  and 
sensation.  And  further,  even  when  the  organism  is  affected, 
nothing  can  be  either  distinctly  or  definitely  perceived,  except 
as  the  intellectual  agency  intervenes  and  works  the  content 
given  into  a  completed  phenomenon.  And  thus,  when  the 
phenomenal  is  given,  no  ordered  experience  can  occur  in 
the  consciousness,  except  as  the  intellectual  agency  connects 
the  phenomena  in  their,  substances,  causes,  and  reciprocal 
influences.  ' 

And  yet  further,  as  proof  that  the  intellectual  is  not  only 
independent  of  the  material,  but  is  itself  permanent  and 
abiding  through  all  its  changing  exercises,  and  is  ever  one 
and  the  same  mind,  we  have  the  conviction  in  clear  con- 
sciousness that  all  our  appearances  are  in  one  and  the  same 
light  of  consciousness  not  only,  but  that  all  the  conscious- 
ness of  objects  must  be  in  one  self,  or  there  could,  in  the 
nature  of  the  case,  be  no  perpetuation  and  connection  in  one 
order  of  experience. 

And  as  more  manifestly  conclusive  still,  we  have  the  un- 
doubted fact  that  all  men  have  the  consciousness  of  a  per- 
during  time  throuoh  ail  the  vicissitudes  of  their  experience, 


376      APPENDIX    TO    THE     UNDERSTAXDINQ, 

and  yet  no  matter  how  permanent  the  nature  of  things 
might  be  which  occasioned  such  experience,  it  nevei-  still 
could  occur  in  one  subjective  time  to  us,  were  it  not  that 
the  one  unvaried  subjective  agency  constructed  the  phenom- 
ena and  connected  them  in  an  unbroken  series  so  far  as  the 
consciousness  extends. 

All  this  demonstrates  a  unity  and  permanence  of  the  Tn- 
*.eilect  that  can  consist  with  nothing  but  the  valid  being  of 
the  one  individual  Mind. 

2.  The  Demonstration  of  Materialism  against  Ideal- 
ism.— The  form  of  Idealism  which  is  given  in  the  Berkleian 
Sensationalism  has  already  been  disposed  of,  in  the  valid 
being  of  the  phenomenal  appended  to  the  Sense.  The  phe- 
nomena having  been  proved  real,  their  connection  in  an 
ordered  experience  will  depend  upon  the  same  permanent 
substance  and  cause,  as  a  notional,  which  we  shall  apply  to 
the  form  of  transcendental  Idealism,  and  will  need  no  other 
and  separate  consideration.  The  German  form  of  Idealism 
as  transcendental,  or  the  ultimate  result  of  the  critical  phi- 
losophy, is  as  follows.  Assuming  the  very  opposite  dictum 
fundamental  for  Materialism,  Idealism  affirms  that  all  sensa- 
tion is  from  the  intellect.  The  intellectual  agency  produces 
all  that  is  phenomenal,  and  connects  all  in  unity  by  a  deter- 
mined process  of  dialectical  development.  Beginning  in 
pure  thought  as  it  goes  on  spontaneously  under  the  control 
of  an  absolute  law,  the  speculation  puts  itself  within  and  as 
identical  with  the  movement,  and  follows  out,  without  fore- 
casting, the  entire  subjective  process.  The  pure  spontane- 
ous thinking  is  at  first  self-absorbed  and  single  in  the  logical 
movement,  and  thus  all  self-consciousness  is  impossible.  As 
the  process  goes  on,  and  the  products  of  the  thinking  be- 


VALID    BEING     OF    THE    NOTIONAL.  877 

come  set  and  stated  in  particular  stages  of  the  devekpment, 
they  stand  out  in  an  orderly  and  determined  connection 
each  with  each,  and  make  in  themselves  a  natural  series. 
These  become  conditions  and  limitations  in  the  spontaneity 
of  thought,  and  forbid  that  thought  should  further  go  on  in 
self-absorption  and  unconscious  development.  The  products 
become  distinguished  from  the  process,  the  connected  series 
of  thought  stands  out  separate  from  the  thinking,  and  as 
other  than  the  intellectual  agency  they  become  objective  to 
it  and  in  the  consciousness  there  appears  a  duahty  as  the 
self  and  the  not-self,  and  thus  self-finding  on  one  side  is  at 
the  same  time  a  finding  an  objective  nature  of  things  on  the 
other  side.  Thought,  thus,  in  spontaneous  development 
originates  its  products  which  limit  and  condition  its  sponta- 
neity, and  which  as  thus  made  objective  to  itself  become  an 
ordered  series  of  experience,  and  stand  out  in  the  conscious- 
ness as  the  regular  ongoings  of  the  external  w^orld  of  na- 
ture. The  Sense  is  but  the  Intellect  giving  objectivity  to  its 
own  logical  creations,  and  the  world  of  matter  is  the  lim- 
iting of  the  process  of  thought  by  its  own  ideals.  The 
space  and  the  time  in  which  they  appear  are  relative  only 
to  the  products,  and  are  objective  in  the  same  way  as  the 
thoughts. 

Nov>',  let  it  be  admitted  that  an  intellectual  agency  may 
pass  on  in  just  such  an  ordered  development  of  thought, 
and  aw^ake  in  self-consciousness  to  find  its  own  products  stand- 
ing out  as  other  than  itself,  and  objective  to  itself,  and  thus 
that  these  products  become  phenomena  and  have  their  rela- 
tive places  and  periods,  yet  will  it  be  utterly  impossible,  in 
any  way,  to  bring  them  into  a  determined  order  of  experi- 
ence which  may  stand  in  one  common  space  and  one  com- 


378      APPENDIX    TO    THE    UNDERSTANDING. 

men  time  for  all.  So  far  as  the  whole  could  be  apprehended 
in  their  places  as  contiguous  place  to  place,  or  as  the  more 
remote  could  be  reached  through  the  contiguous  places  in- 
tervening, the  determination  of  all  in  their  places  relatively 
to  the  place  of  the  whole  would  be  easy,  and  the  contem- 
plating mind  would  so  far  have  them  all  in  one  space.  But 
when  there  was  any  break  in  the  contiguity  from  any  lapse 
of  the  connecting  intellect,  it  would  sunder  place  from  place, 
and  neither  distance  nor  direction  could  be  determined 
across  the  chasm.  The  same  subject  of  consciousness 
would  have  his  own  experience  dissolved,  and  his  phenom- 
ena standing  together  in  their  patches  of  places  that  could 
not  be  put  into  any  one  space  which  should  hold  them  all. 

And  so  far  as  these  phenomena  could  be  apprehended  as 
continuous  in  their  periods,  or  as  the  earlier  could  be 
reached  by  consciously  remembered  successions,  then  their 
paiiods  relatively  to  each  other  in  the  time  of  the  whole 
might  be  easily  determined.  But  when  there  was  any  cessa- 
tion in  the  connecting  process  there  would  come  a  void  in 
the  linked  successions,  and  the  same  subject  of  conscious- 
ness would  have  his  continuance  of  time  dissolved  with  no 
possibility  of  renewing  the  connection.  The  same  subject 
could  not  keep  up  a  perpetuated  experience  in  any  one  space 
or  any  one  time. 

But  further,  admit  an  uninterrupted  experience,  and  thus 
a  perpetuation  of  contiguous  places  and  continuous  periods, 
and  therefore  to  the  subject  the  capability  to  determine  all 
his  experience  to  one  space  and  one  time,  he  would  still  be 
unable  to  put  his  experience  into  any  one  common  space 
and  one  common  time  with  others.  His  phenomena,  places, 
and  periods,  and  thus  his  whole  experience,  space,  and  time, 


VALID    BEING     OF    THE    NOTIONAL.  379 

are  wholly  restricted  to  himself  in  his  own  subject,  and 
what  this  may  be  relatively  to  others,  he  can  not  determine 
for  them,  nor  they  for  him.  Each  one  is  shut  in  upon  him- 
self, and  his  process  of  thinking  and  connecting  in  self- 
consciousness  is  isolate,  and  no  one  can  determiuately  put 
his  experience  into  another's  places  and  periods,  and  make 
it  to  have  its  connections  in  one  common  space  and  one 
common  time  with  others. 

But  we  have  now  made  it  manifest,  that  all  experiences 
are  determined  in  the  same  one  space  and  one  time  for  all 
the  human  family,  through  the  medium  of  a  notional  in  the 
understanding.  At  whatever  place  or  period  any  one  mem- 
oer  of  the  human  family  has  lived,  and  had  his  experience  of 
the  phenomena  and  their  vicissitudes  in  the  world  of  nature 
about  him,  he  knows  how  to  connect  them  in  the  same  one 
space  and  the  same  one  time  Avith  all  the  experiences  of  the 
race,  and  that  such  places  and  periods  for  individual  experi- 
ence have  their  relationship  in  this  one  space  and  one  time 
to  the  places  and  periods  for  the  experiences  of  all  others. 
This  demonstrates  that  the  experience  of  the  race  is  not 
ideal  and  merely  an  objectifying  of  their  own  thoughts. 
The  proof  is  conclusive  that  there  is  a  substantial  nature  of 
things,  and  a  perpetual  causal  efficiency  working  on  in  the 
material  world. 

Also,  from  the  now  determined  law  of  phenomenal  con- 
nections in  the  notions  of  substances,  causes,  and  reciprocal 
influences,  it  is  competent  to  show  that  a  credulous  or  super- 
stitious fancy,  by  false  judgments,  may  introduce  the  follow- 
ing forms  of  preternatural  visions,  but  which  will  exhaust 
all  the  methods  of  dealing  in  "  lying  wonders."  There  may 
be  assumed  to  be  appearances  in  space  with  no  substantial 


380      APPENDIX    TO    THE    UNDERSTANDING. 

filling  of  space,  and  here  we  may  have  any  form  of  ghosts  and 
sph'itual  apparitions.  Or  there  may  be  assumed  to  be  events 
appearing  that  come  and  depart  with  no  perduring  source 
out  of  which  they  arise,  and  we  shall  have  all  the  illusions 
of  magic,  and  the  legerdemain  of  jugglers  and  conjurers. 
Or  there  may  be  pretended  to  be  an  apprehension  of  future 
events  without  the  causal  connections,  and  there  will  be  all 
the  deceptions  of  fortune-tellers  and  soothsayers.  Or  finally 
there  may  be  claimed  to  be  communion  with  no  reciprocal 
media,  and  under  this  we  shall  have  all  the  assumptions  of 
clairvoyance  and  the  pretended  revelations  of  the  mesmeric 
sleep.  These  are  all  the  forms  of  judgments  that  may  be 
falsified  in  their  connections,  and  are  thus  the  only  methods 
in  which  it  can  be  attempted  to  enter  into  an  experience 
neither  natural  nor  supernatural.  The  necessary  notional 
connections  are  here  discarded,  and  the  miraculous  interven- 
tions of  the  supernatural  are  not  claimed,  and  thus  all  the 
mystery  must  be  assumed  to  lie  in  somewhat  that  is  aside 
from  nature  as  the  preternatural.  Put  by  themselves,  all 
such  appearances  must  be  phantoms  in  a  maze,  and  would 
constitute  a  world  that  could  not  become  intelligible  nor 
give  an  experience  that  could  be  determined  in  any  one  space 
and  one  time  as  common  to  all.  If  there  were  not  already 
a  substantial  and  causal  nature  of  things,  it  could  not  be 
determined  where  the  ghosts  were  nor  when  they  appeared. 
A  mere  sense  world,  or  a  merely  ideal  world,  could  never 
give  an  experience  for  all  in  a  space  and  time  for  all. 

3.  An  outline  of  the  demonstration  against  Universal 
Pyrrhonism. — This  skepticism  deduces  its  conclusions  from 
the  alleged  contradiction  of  the  consciousness  by  the  reason. 
The  undoubted  universal  conviction  of  consciousness  is  that 


VALID    BEING     OP    THE    NOTIONAL.  381 

we  perceive  external  objects  immediately,  and  not  some 
image  or  ideal  representation  of  them.  Reason,  on  the 
other  hand,  directly  falsifies  such  convictions,  and  demon- 
strates that  often  at  least  the  real  outer  object  can  not  be  in 
tlie  sensibility,  and  that  when  it  does  come  in  contact,  it  can 
not  be  the  object  but  only  the  sensation  which  may  be 
directly  perceived.  In  all  cases,  not  the  object,  but  some 
intermediate  representative  thereof,  must  be  that  which  is 
actually  perceived,  and  at  best  we  must  know  the  outer 
objects  by  this  intermediate  representative. 

Here,  then,  two  original  and  independent  sources  of 
knowledge  terminate  in  direct  and  unavoidable  contradic- 
tion. Clear  consciousness  may  not  be  questioned,  nor  its 
convictions  resisted.  A  clear  deduction  of  reason  may  not 
be  gainsay ed,  but  its  demonstration  must  compel  assent. 
One  may  not  be  permitted  to  correct  the  other,  for  they  are 
both  original  and  independent ;  nor  can  one  expound  the 
other,  for  there  can  be  no  exposition  authoritative  of  one 
over  the  other.  When  one  source  of  knowledge  comes  in 
different  ways  to  opposite  convictions,  an  e-xposition  may 
be  made  by  an  independent  examination  of  the  media  of 
knowledge.  When  T  perceive  the  same  phenomenon  through 
different  colored  glasses,  or  as  passing  from  a  rarer  to  a 
denser  medium,  such  explanation  of  the  contradiction  is 
practicable  between  the  two  perceptions,  but  here  the  con- 
tradiction is  affirmed  to  lie  between  clear  consciousness  and 
legitimate  reasoning ;  and  all  that  can  be  said  is  that  they 
subvert  each  the  other,  and  all  ground  of  confidence  in  our 
whole  intelligent  being  falls  hopelessly  away  forever. 

But,  now,  in  our  psychological  examination  of  percep- 
tion and  judgment,  we  have  attained  the  complete  Idea  of 


382      APPENDIX    TO    THE     UNDERSTANDING. 

the  whole  process,  and  we  have  also  found  the  actual  Law 
in  the  facts,  and  here  we  have  found  exact  harmony  and  not 
contradiction.  The  Idea  in  the  reason,  and  the  Law  in  the 
facts  as  given  in  consciousness,  are  in  the  accordance  of  per- 
fect correlates ;  there  must  then  be  some  false  element  some- 
where in  this  alleged  conclusion  of  inevitable  contradictions. 
We  may  also  affirm  further,  that  the  data  are  given  b^ 
which  we  may  detect  the  fallacy  on  which  rests  this  whole 
superstructure  of  absolute  doubt,  and  show  just  how  and 
where  the  fallacy  is  made  an  occasion  for  surreptitiously 
bringing  in  so  fatal  a  skepticism. 

The  data  attained  in  Rational  Psychology  may  be  used  as 
follows  :  The  content  which  is  given  in  sensation  becomes 
an  occasion  for  a  spontaneous  intellectual  operation  of  Dis- 
tinction, and  thereby  the  quality  is  brought  into  distinct 
consciousness.  The  constructing  intellectual  agency  gives 
to  it  definite  form  in  the  consciousness,  and  thereby  the  per- 
ception is  perfected  and  the  phenomenon  complete.  The 
content  as  sensation,  while  it  occasions  the  intellectual 
agency  in  discriminating  and  constructing,  determines  it 
also  according  to  its  own  conditions,  and  is  thus  objective  in 
its  reality,  as  opposed  to  the  intellectual  agency  which  is 
subjective  in  its  reality.  All  this  is  brought  within  the 
immediate  consciousness,  and  is  thus  a  direct  and  immediate 
perception.  So  far,  our  psychological  conclusions  confirm 
the  jirst  fact  assumed  by  the  skeptic  as  his  preparation  of 
the  ground  for  his  deduction  of  universal  Pyrrhonism  ;  viz., 
that  the  universal  conviction  of  consciousness  is  that  we 
perceive  the  object  immediately. 

But  the  fact  further  is,  that  this  distinct  and  definite 
quality  is  all  that  the  sense  can  reach,  and  all  that  consciouft* 


VALID    BEING     OF    THE    NOTIONAL.  383 

ness  can  testify  to  as  immediate  in  its  own  light.  That 
causaUty,  whatever  it  may  be,  which  gave  this  content  to 
the  sensibiUty  and  thus  in  its  affection  induced  sensation,  is 
not  itself  given  m  the  sensation,  nor  can  it  be  known  as 
immediately  in  the  consciousness.  It  is  not  at  all  perceived, 
but  must  be  attained,  if  known  at  all,  through  some  other 
faculty  than  that  of  the  sense.  The  qualities  of  the  rose — 
color,  fragrance,  smoothness,  weight,  taste,  etc.,  as  given  in 
any  and  all  organs  of  sense — are  immediately  perceived; 
but  what  perception  ever  attained  the  rose  itself,  as  other 
than  its  qualities  ?  The  rose,  as  causality  for  affecting  the 
sensibility  through  the  content  given,  is  not  an  object  for 
the  consciousness  at  all,  and  is  not,  therefore,  in  the  testi- 
mony of  any  consciousness,  immediately  perceived.  Reason 
only  affirms  that  this  causality,  which  is  back  of  its  per- 
ceived  qualities,  is  not  perceived ;  and  certainly  no  con- 
sciousness contradicts  this.  Consciousness  confirms  this,  so 
far  as  it  may,  by  its  negation  of  all  testimony  about  it.  It 
denies  that  any  thing  back  of  the  qualities  ever  becomes  an 
object  to  it.  And  the  same  might  also  be  shown  of  the 
inner  phenomena.  The  acts,  as  affecting  the  internal  state 
in  any  mental  exercise,  come  in  to  immediate  perception, 
as  they  come  immediately  within  the  light  of  consciousness, 
but  whose  consciousness  ever  testified  that  his  own  mind,  as 
causality  for  these  acts,  had  ever  been  immediately  per- 
ceived? Consciousness  affirms  one  thing,  an  immediate  per- 
ception of  qualities ;  and  reason  does  not  at  all  contradict 
this,  but  affirms  and  a  priori  demonstrates  it.  Reason  also 
affirms  one  thing — whatever  it  may  be  which  is  under  or 
back  of  the  qualities,  and  is  causality  for  their  coming  within 
the  sensibility  that  they  may  thus  be  brought  by  the  Intel- 


384        APPENDIX    TO    THE    UNDERSTANDING. 

lectual  agency  into  the  light  of  consciousness — that  this 
causality  as  thing  in  itself  can  not  be  immediately  perceived ; 
and  consciousness  does  by  no  means  affirm  in  contradiction, 
but,  as  far  as  it  may,  sustains  reason  by  a  negation  of  all 
testimony  about  it.  The  whole  basis  of  the  skepticism,  so 
broad  and  startling  in  its  consequences,  is  thus  found  to  be 
the  old  sophism  figurw  dictio?iis,  so  often  deluding  us  by  its 
fallacies,  and  which  is  at  once  demolished  when  our  analysis 
enables  us  to  see  the  false  play  upon  the  phraseology.  The 
object  for  the  sense  in  its  perception  is  phenomenon  as  quality 
solely ;  the  object  for  the  reason  is  the  thing  itself  as  cau- 
sality for  its  qualities :  and  certainly  consciousness  may  very 
well  testify  for  its  immediate  perception  of  the  former,  and 
reason  very  well  deny  an  immediate  perception  of  the  latter, 
without  any  contradiction  between  them.  We  are  thus 
able  to  utterly  overthrow  universal  skepticism,  by  being 
made  competent,  through  the  conclusions  of  Rational  Psy- 
chology, to  expose  the  sophism  on  which  it  had  been  built. 

We  have  thus  a  valid  being  of  the  inner  spiritual  Intel- 
lect against  Materialism ;  and  a  valid  being  of  the  external 
material  World  against  Idealism ;  and  a  complete  subversion 
of  that  Universal  Skepticism  which  denied  that  we  might 
know  either  of  them. 

We  may  also  very  well  show  how  impossible  it  must  be 
to  attain  to  any  such  demonstration,  or  effect  any  such  over- 
throw of  all  skepticism  relative  to  our  knowledge  in  percep- 
tion, by  taking  the  position  of  Reid.  This  is  available  only 
as  a  defense,  not  at  all  as  a  point  of  aggression  against  any 
skepticism  ;  and  it  defends  itself  only  in  the  dogmatism  of 
an  assumption.  The  argument  from  common  sense  was  sim- 
ply the  conviction  of  consciousness   which  Hume  alleged 


VALID     BEING     OF    THE    NOTIONAL.  1^85 

was  contradicted  by  reason.  While  Reid  affirmed  that  com- 
mon sense  was  wiser  and  safer  than  all  the  conclusions  of 
reason,  Hume  could  still  allege  his  proofs  that  reason  flatly 
contradicted  common  sense  notwithstanding.  Hume  could 
not  thus  be  cured  of  his  universal  skepticism,  nor  so  far  as 
his  philosophy  could  avail  could  Reid  prevent  himself  from 
being  dragged  down  into  the  same  abyss,  and  only  saved 
himself  by  prudently  holding  on  to  consciousness  or  com- 
mon sense,  and  let  philosophical  reasoning  go  where  it 
would.  And  the  same  also  is  true  in  relation  to  the  other 
forms  of  skq3ticism ;  it  is  not  possible  from  mere  counter- 
assumptions  to  do  any  thing  effectual  to  extirpate  them. 
"In  1812  Sir  James  Mcintosh  remarked  to  Dr.  Brown, that 
Reid  and  Hume  differed  more  in  words  than  opinion."  Dr. 
Brown  replied — "  Yes,  Reid  bawls  out — '  we  must  believe 
an  outer  world ;'  and  then  whispers,  '  but  we  can  give  no 
reason  for  our  belief.'  "  "  Hume  cries  aloud — '  We  can 
give  no  reason  for  such  a  notion ;'  and  then  whispers,  '  I 
own  we  can  not  get  rid  of  it.'  " — Progress  of  Ethical 
Philosophy^  p.  239. 

The  conclusion  from  all  the  above  is  unavoidable,  that 
no  subjective  action  of  a  veritable  understanding  can  possi- 
bly give  the  conditions  for  determining  a  nature  of  things 
objectively  to  its  places  in  space  and  its  periods  in  time. 
Even  if  an  understanding  could  create  its  own  world  of  phe- 
nomenal qualities  and  events,  it  could  not  determine  their 
places  and  periods  in  one  immensity  of  space  and  eternity 
of  time,  if  it  did  not  also  make  them  to  inhere  in  their  sub- 
stances, depend  upon  their  sources,  adhere  through  their 
causes,  and  cohere  by  their  reciprocities.  And  if  it  did  this 
for  itself,  it  could  not  determine  one  common  space  and 

17 


38t)   APPENDIX  TO  THE  UNDERSTANDING. 

time  for  all,  except  as  the  substances  and  causes  were  objec- 
tive realities.  A  nature  of  things  in  determined  space  and 
time  must  have  its  inherent  laws  of  connection,  and  such 
laws  can  no  more  relax  the  constancy  and  stringency  of  their 
control,  than  space  may  break  up  its  own  immensity  or  time 
may  sunder  its  own  perpetuity.  The  nature  of  things  as 
they  exist  is  thus  demonstrably  an  inteUigible  Universal  Sys- 
tem. Not  an  accumulation  of  atoms  but  a  connection  of 
things ;  not  a  sequence  of  appearances  but  a  conditioned 
series  of  events ;  not  a  coincidence  of  facts  but  a  universal 
communion  of  interacting  forces.  Nor  is  such  a  conclusion 
merely  assumed  ;  nor  the  credulity  induced  by  habitual  ex- 
perience ;  nor  the  revelation  of  an  instinctive  prophecy  ;  but 
it  is  a  demonstration  from  an  a  priori  Idea  and  an  actual 
Law  which  logically  and  legitimately  excludes  all  skepti" 
cism. 


PART    IIL 

THE       REASON 


THE   FUNCTION   AND   PROVINCE    OF   THE   REASON". 

In  the  determmation  of  the  accordance  of  Idea  and  Law 
in  both  the  Sense  and  the  Understanding,  we  have  ah'eady 
done  Avhat  the  Sense  and  the  Understanding  alone  by  tliein- 
selves  could  never  accomplish.  The  Sense  by  distinguish- 
ing and  conjoining  can  give  distinct  and  definite  phenomena, 
but  the  Sense  has  no -interest  nor  capacity  to  look  over  its 
own  agency,  or  look  hito  its  own  function,  and  find  that 
which  is  a  x>riori  conditional  for  its  own  operations,  and 
thereby  explain  its  OAvn  perceptions.  And  so  also  the  Un- 
derstanding by  connecting  the  phenomena  into  things  and 
events  can  give  an  ordered  experience  in  one  common  space 
and  one  common  time,  but  the  Understanding  has  neither 
interest  nor  capacity  for  rising  above  its  connecting  opera- 
tions and  finding  that  which  is  necessarily  conditional  for  all 
processes  of  thinking,  and  thereby  explaining  its  own  judg- 
ments. The  Sense  is  satisfied  in  perceiving,  and  the  Under- 
standing satisfied  in  judging,  and  neither  of  them  can  phi- 
losophize about  perceiving  and  judging,  and  what  we  have 
already  done  in  determining  both  the  sense  and  the  under- 


388  THE    REASON. 

standing  has  been  in  the  use  of  a  function  quite  other  and 
higher  than  either. 

The  diverse  points  and  instants  were  no  sense-phenom- 
ena, and  can  not  themselves  he  perceived,  but  were  neces- 
sary conditions  for  all  perceiving ,  and  thus  the  primitive 
intuition  of  space  and  time  were  wholly  attained  by  the 
reason.  And  so  also  the  space-filling  and  time-abiding 
forces  were  no  phenomena  for  the  sense,  nor  anj  judgments 
connected  by  the  understanding,  but  were  necessary  condi- 
tions for  all  connections  of  phenomena  in  judgments ;  and 
thus  the  pure  notion  as  substance  and  cause  has  also  been 
wholly  attained  by  the  reason.  By  its  insight  only  was  it 
made  known  that  without  the  points  and  instants,  phenom- 
ena could  have  neither  place  nor  period,  and  without  the 
substantial  and  causal  forces,  the  phenomena  could  never  be 
determined  to  an  experience  in  one  common  space  and  one 
common  time.  A  higher  function  has  all  along  been  in  ex- 
ercise, and  we  have  come  to  an  exposition  philosophically 
of  both  the  sense  and  the  understanding  by  the  insight  and 
oversight  of  this  superior  function. 

In  the  Sense  we  perceive ;  in  the  Understanding  we 
judge  /  but  in  the  Reason  we  overlook  the  whole  process  of 
both.  The  one  intellect  envisages  in  the  sense,  substantiates 
in  the  understanding,  and  supei^ises  in  the  reason.  The 
same  intellect  as  sense  distinguishes  quality  and  conjoins 
quantity;  as  understanding  connects  phenomena;  and  as 
reason  comprehends  all  forms  of  knowing. 

Since,  then,  the  sense  and  the  understanding  have  had 
no  interest  in  the  work  of  comprehending  their  own  pro- 
cesses and  no  capability  for  effecting  it,  more  manifest  is  it, 
that  it  must  now  be  from  the  interest  and  capacity  of  the 


PROVINCE    OF    THE    REASON.  389 

reason  alone  that  we  shall  come  to  any  comprehension  of  its 
Dwn  processes  of  knowing.  The  anunal  has  sense  and  per- 
aeives,  and  has  also  understanding  that  judges  of  the  rela- 
tions  of  what  is  perceived,  but  it  is  only  as  the  man  is  ra- 
tional that  he  can  subject  both  his  perceiving  and  judging 
to  an  a  lyriori  determination.  The  animal  may  be  said 
merely  to  know,  but  the  man  goes  beyond,  and  knows  his 
very  processes  of  knowing.  It  becomes,  thus,  the  last  want 
of  science  in  its  highest  exercise  to  thoroughly  examine  this 
function  of  the  reason  and  comprehend  its  own  processes  of 
comprehending. 

The  difficulty  of  this  last  investigation  appears  promi- 
nently in  this,  that  it  can  not  be  in  the  use  of  a  higher  func- 
tion subjecting  a  lower  to  its  examination,  for  it  is  the  high- 
est of  all  functions  for  knowing  that  we  are  now  engaged  in 
considering,  and  there  can  be  no  other  method  than  a  pro- 
cess of  self-knowledge ;  the  reason  must  examine  and  deter- 
mine its  own  processes  in  the  exercise  of  its  own  insight- 
Here  is  the  grand  yvC^dc  aeavrbv  of  the  ancient  philosophers, 
the  most  difficult  attainment  of  all  science,  and  comprehen- 
sive itself  of  all  philosophy.  No  intuitions  in  space  and 
time  can  here  help  us,  for  that  which  we  seek  can  have  no 
construction  in  figure  or  period ;  and  just  as  little  can  any 
connections  of  discursive  thought  help  us,  for  that  which 
we  seek  can  never  be  connected  in  the  notions  of  substance 
and  cause.  That  which  we  would  here  know  must  be 
wholly  supersensible  and  supernatural.  The  overseer  of 
nature  can  not  be  shut  up  within  nature.  We  seek  that 
which  encompasses  nature,  and  which  can  not  be  any  media 
of  connection  within  nature. 

It  demands  careful  notice  how  impossible  it  must  ever 


890  THE    REASON. 

be  to  enter  the  province  and  fulfill  tlie  function  of  an  all- 
comprehending  reason  by  any  processes  of  discursive  think- 
ing. It  is  no  more  preposterous  to  set  the  sense  to  thinking 
and  judging,  than  it  is  to  set  the  understanding  to  oversee- 
ing and  comprehending.  Geometry  may  as  well  be  made 
dynamical  and  invade  the  province  of  natural  philosophy,  as 
to  make  natural  philosophy  transcend  nature  and  explore 
the  region  of  the  supernatural.  The  intuitions  of  sense. 
constructions  have  their  proper  field  for  a  pure  science  ;  the 
nnderstanding-discursions  have  also  their  proper  field  and 
philosophy ;  and  the  insight  of  the  reason  must  have  its 
own  field  and  peculiar  science  above  them  all.  And  yet  so 
constant,  and  determined,  and  almost  incorrigible,  has  been 
the  attempt  to  enter  the  province  of  the  reason  through 
some  processes  of  the  discursive  imderstanding,  that  it  be- 
comes an  interest  on  the  behalf  of  all  rational  science  thor- 
oughly to  expose  the  absurdity  and  helplessness  of  all  possi- 
ble efforts  in  this  direction.  The  prison  of  nature  is  the  des- 
tined dwelling  of  the  discursive  understanding,  and  if  the 
human  intellect  has  no  higher  processes  of  knowing,  then 
verily  will  these  prison-doors  never  open  on  any  thing  be- 
yond. All  that  an  understanding  wants,  is  to  think  the 
connections  in  a  nature  of  things,  with  no  hinderances,  and 
be  permitted  to  push  her  pathway  from  condition  to  condi- 
tioned interminably.  But  how  thus  make  a  leap  from  the 
fleeting  phenomena,  which  perpetually  alternate  in  births 
and  deaths,  to  a  world  of  immortality  ?  How  escape  from 
the  linked  necessities  in  this  iron  chain  to  know  the  free 
originations  of  the  Being  who  acts  in  His  own  liberty  ?  How 
rise  from  the  interminably  dependent  to  an  absolutely  inde- 
pendent Author  and  Governor  ? 


PEOVINCE    OF    THE    K  E  A  S  O  IT  .  S*)! 

The  process  may  begin  in  suhjective  thought^  and  the 
postulate  may  be  some  law  of  thought  as  a  regulative-con- 
ception, or  an  identification  of  subject  and  object,  or  an 
abstraction  which  annihilates  all  distinctions  of  being  and 
naught,  but  in  all  cases  the  thinking  must  proceed  in  an 
interminable  series  of  fixed  conditions,  with  no  interest  in 
nor  aim  toward,  any  ultimate  consummation.  It  may  be 
termed  a  development  of  the  absolute  thought,  but  in  that 
direction  the  development  can  have  no  completion,  and  the 
perfected  Deity  is  found  only  at  the  fulfillment  of  the  inter- 
minable logical  evolution  ;  or  it  may  essay  to  turn  itself  back 
upon  its  own  footsteps  and  retrace  its  way  to  some  uncondi- 
tioned landing-stair,  and  at  some  highest  generalization  or 
abstraction  assume  that  it  has  reached  that  supernatural, 
but  on  this  assumed  highest  standing-point  there  is  no  relief 
to  the  demand  for  an  ah  extra  conditioning,  and  the  under- 
standing must  still  hopelessly  peer  into  the  open  void  and 
anxiously  stretch  one  foot  forward  in  vacuity.  The  highest 
condition  and  the  last  conditioned  are  still  nature  only,  and 
the  living  movement  that  has  gone  from  one  to  the  other  can 
at  the  most  be  called  the  world-spirit,  which  has  thought  out 
the  whole  process  and  been  the  same  in  every  stage,  and  not 
at  all  the  world-creator,  who  was  before  the  world  was  made 
and  has  been  above  it  and  Lord  of  it  through  all  its  onward 
changes. 

Or  the  attempt  may  be  made  to  reach  the  supernatural 
by  beginning  in  objective  7iature.  Here  the  understanding 
can  move  from  one  phenomenal  event  to  another  only  through 
their  substances  and  causes.  The  speculation  must,  there- 
fore, run  an  endless  race,  for  if  it  stop  any  where  up  or  down 
the  series,  it  must  bring  its  first  j^henomenon  from,  or  lose 


392  THE    REASON. 

its  last  in,  an  utter  void.     Should  it  assume  to  have  run  all 
back  to  an  original  absolute  substance  out  of  which  all  phe- 
nomena have  come,  this  absolute  substance,  so  called,  would 
be  only  nature  still,  standing  as  the  germ  of  the  universe 
with  its  rudiments  conditioned  already  in  the  order  of  their 
necessary  evolution.     Should  it  trace  all  to  a  first  cause,  it 
could  find  nothing  in  this  assumed  first  cause  but  an  efficiency 
already  conditioned  and  which  must  produce  the  events  in 
just  such  an  ordered  series,  and  could  thus  be  merely  the 
mner  power  which  works  out  the  world  of  nature.     If  it 
assume  this  cause  as  so  producing  the  universe  that  the  uni- 
verse does  not  as  much  condition  it  in  its  reactions  as  it  does 
the  universe,  then  is  there  the  sundering  of  the  first  cause 
from  nature  and  a  chasm  is  made  over  which  it  is  impossible 
that  any  thought  of  an  understanding  should  be  able  to 
pass.     But  if  it  allows  the  conditions  to  so  go  down  into 
nature  that  they  may  be  followed  up  from  nature  and  reach 
back  within  the  causation  itself,  this  could  be  no  supernatural 
divinity,  but  nature  still  running  up  her  linked  ]-egressus 
into  the  bosom  of  the  Deity.     The  very  conception  of  a  sub- 
stance is  that  of  a  space-filling  force  which  must  affect  the 
sense  and  give  out  its  phenomena  in  a  determined  manner, 
and  if  it  be  modified  by  other  substantial  forces  as  cause,  it 
must  make  its  changes  in  a  determined  order.     The  intrinsic 
being  of  substances  and  causes,  as  used  by  an  understanding, 
must  make  their  qualities  and  passing  events  unavoidable 
and  without  alternatives.     Substance  and  cause  are  essen- 
tially nature,  and  can  never  reach  the  being  of  the  super- 
natural. 

The  search  for  the  supernatural  is  just  as  endless  and 
?mpty  when  we  attempt  the  attainment  through  the  indica 


PEOVIXCE  OF  THE  REASON.         393 

tions  of  adapted'/uss  to  ends.  Nature  gives  many  indica 
tioiis  of  design,  and  design  must  have  a  designer.  The  con- 
dition must  be  adequate  to  the  conditioning,  and  as  the  fact 
is  more  than  causation,  even  adapting  causation,  so  such 
ada2)ting  cause  must  have  had  an  intelhgent  source.  We 
attempt  to  find  such  intelligent  source  by  a  process  of  thought 
in  the  understanding.  We  seize  upon  an  assumed  designer 
as  condition  for  the  produced  design,  and  we  find  this  itself 
adapted  to  produce  just  such  results.  The  adaptation  is 
just  as  manifest  here  as  in  its  own  product,  and  is  a  condi- 
tioned demanding  for  itself  a  previous  conditioning,  and 
thus  a  higher  designer,  as  truly  and  for  the  same  reason  as 
the  former  adapted  product.  Whence  the  independent 
unconditioned  spring  for  all  design  ?  The  fact  that  humanity 
asks  this  is  proof  that  humanity  has  that  which  can  not  be 
satisfied  with  nature,  but  if  the  discursive  understanding  be 
set  to  find  it,  its  highest  adapting  cause  will  to  it  be  neces- 
sarily an  adapted  product,  and  from  its  law  of  thinking  the 
chase  must  be  still  onward.  We  may  assume  that  there  is, 
somewhere,  an  underived  designer,  because  the  interest  of 
this  higher  demand  in  humanity  can  not  else  be  quieted,  but 
in  the  use  of  the  understanding  only  we  are  forced  to  rest 
in  the  mere  assumption,  and  make  the  want  the  only  ground 
for  assuming  the  being,  while  the  intellect  can  never  attain 
to  such  being  nor  make  its  conception  any  thing  other  than 
an  intrinsic  absurdity.  An  endless  series  may  be  claimed  as 
an  absurdity,  but  on  the  opposite  side,  to  the  understanding 
there  is  the  impossibility  and  absurdity  of  taking  any  adapt- 
ing cause  which  is  not  in  itself  an  index  of  its  having  already 
been  adapted. 

In  subjective  thought,  we  may  thus  run  the  race  of  spec- 
17* 


394  THE    REASON. 

ulative  Idealism;  in  objective  nature,  we  may  follow  the 
track  of  philosophical  Materialism;  and  in  an  assumed 
Teleology,  we  may  flee  from  absurdities  up  the  stream  of 
adapting  causes  which  have  no  source ;  but  the  fixed  con- 
nections of  a  discursive  understanding  necessarily  exclude  it 
forever  from  the  land  of  promise.  The  Canaan  of  the  super- 
natural can  not  so  be  entered.  The  empty  abstraction  is 
but  the  thinking  an  ideal  Deity  into  nature  ;  the  false  gener- 
alization is  but  the  crowding  of  nature  back  into  Deity. 
•Reason  presses  all  her  interest  for  deliverance,  but  no  tor- 
tured energies  of  an  understanding  can  give  any  relief. 

The  conception  and  use  of  the  speculative  reason  as 
given  by  Kant  can  not  at  all  help  us.  It  differs  wholly 
from  the  reason  as  given  by  PlatQ,  and  which  only  is  the 
true  function  we  at  all  need  for  the  attainment  of  the  super- 
natural. The  former  finds  in  humanity  this  irrepressible 
want  for  an  unconditioned  cause  and  an  unadapted  designer, 
which  may  truly  be  first  cause  and  independent  intelligence, 
and  instead  of  recognizing  it  as  a  demand  originating  in  the 
insight  of  the  reason  and  which  only  the  functions  of  the 
reason  can  satisfy,  he  makes  it  to  be  a  constitutional  form  or 
a  priori  conception  in  the  human  mind  regulative  of  the 
process  towards  its  attainment,  and  then  pushes  on  the  pro- 
cess from  the  conditioned  to  the  conditioner  as  if  at  last  the 
unconditioned  supernatural  might  be  attained.  This  is 
shown  to  be  a  vain  and  hopeless  effort,  inasmuch  a=5  it 
involves  an  intrinsic  antinomy  in  the  speculative  faculty 
itself.  The  same  intellectual  faculty,  which  demands  and 
regulates  the  process  to  get,  is  obliged  to  convict  itself  of  an 
utter  helplessness  to  attain.  But  it  has  been  really  the  rea- 
son demanding  the  supernatural,  and  the  discursive  facult\ 


PROVINCE    OF    THE    REASON.  395 

of  tho  understanding  sent  on  to  find  it.  The  antinomy 
arises  from  the  mistake  of  employing  the  connecting  under- 
standing to  work  out  the  problems  of  the  comprehending 
reason.  When  the  reason  as  function  is  set  to  work  in  the 
light  and  under  the  direction  of  its  own  insight,  no  antinomy 
arises  and  the  supernatural  is  fairly  and  intelligibly  attained. 
The  common  consciousness  is  the  light  in  which  we  see 
all  phenomena,  and  the  common  discursive  thinking  is  the 
process  by  which  we  judge  all  phenomena  to  be  connected 
in  one  nature,  but  a  higher  light  and  a  broader  process  is 
necessary  that  we  may  comprehend  nature  in  a  clearly  ascer- 
tained supernatural  Author  and  Governor.  To  distinguifih 
this  insight  of  the  reason,  and  express  our  conviction  of  its 
difference  from  all  lower  forms  of  knowing,  we  say  of  its 
objects  that  we  have  them  in  our  "  mind's  eye."  The  painter 
or  sculptor  has  his  perfect  archetype  after  which  he  works, 
and  which  is  comprehensive  of  all  he  hopes  to  express  on 
his  canvas  or  in  his  block  of  marble,  but  as  a  creation  of 
the  reason,  it  is  only  in  the  "  mind's  eye"  that  the  ideal 
stands  before  him.  So,  it  has  been  by  no  perception  of 
sense  that  we  have  determined  the  phenomena  to  one  com- 
mon space  and  one  common  time,  or  that  we  have  found  the 
space-filling  and  time-abiding  force  to  be  necessary  to  a  com- 
mon experience  of  nature  ;  all  this  has  been  from  tlio  insight 
of  the  reason,  and  the  process  has  been  determined  solely 
under  the  direction  of  the  "mind's  eye,"  and  when  we  now 
come  to  the  attainment  of  the  supernatural  compass  for 
comprehending  all  of  nature  and  experience,  the  common 
consciousness  and  the  common  logical  discursions  can  do  us 
no  service,  but  we  must  direct  our  Avay  by  the  "  mind's  eye" 
only.     And  yet,  as  the  light  in  which  we  have  examined 


396  THE    EEASON. 

and  expounded  both  the  perceiving  and  judging  has  led  us 
to  results  more  convincingly  valid  than  all  perceiving  and 
judging  could  themselves  attain,  so  we  may  rest  assured 
will  the  light  of  reason  as  convincingly  bring  us  to  the 
knowledge  of  a  validly  existing  supernatural  domain. 

A  synthesis,  as  something  added  to  nature  which  is 
above  nature,  and  not  an  analysis,  as  something  taken  from 
nature  which  is  already  in  nature,  is  what  we  here  need. 
The  God  of  nature  must  be  known  as  independent  of  na- 
ture, and  added  in  the  judgment  that  He  is  nature's  Creator. 
In  the  mind's  eye,  the  primitive  intuition  gave  occasion  for 
immediately  beholding  how  phenomena  must  be  constructed, 
and  the  substantial  and  causal  forces  gave  also  in  the 
mind's  eye  the  occasion  for  rationally  demonstrating  how 
alone  experience  could  be  connected  in  one  space  and  one 
time;  so  now,  the  mind's  eye  must  as  clearly  apprehend  the 
supernatural  spirit  in  order  to  any  demonstration,  how 
alone  universal  nature  can  be  comprehended  in  an  author  as 
its  beginning,  and  a  finisher  as  its  consummating.  In  this 
only  can  we  possess  the  compass  for  comprehending  how 
nature,  and  nature's  one  space  and  one  time,  can  begin  and 
end.  In  this  necessary  process  of  comprehending  nature 
by  the  supernatural,  we  shall  attain  the  true  function  of  the 
reason  in  its  subjective  Idea.  We  must  afterwards  find  act- 
ual facts  in  colligation  by  a  Law,  which  is  the  exact  correla- 
tive of  this  Idea,  and  in  this  we  shall  have  a  completed 
science  of  Rational  Psychology.  An  ontological  demonstra- 
tion of  the  being  of  God,  of  the  soul,  and  a  world  of  im- 
mortality, may  then  fairly  follow. 


CHAPTER    I. 

THE  REASON  IN  ITS  SUBJECTIVE  IDEA. 


SECTION    I. 

THE  ATTAINMENT  OF  THE  ABSOLUTE  AS  AN  1  PRIORI 
POSITION  FOR  THE  REASON. 

When  we  trace  backward  the  work  of  the  understand- 
ing in  connecting  phenomena  into  a  system  of  universal 
nature,  we  find  every  event  to  be  conditioned  to  an  antece- 
dent, and  inasmuch  as  the  series  in  nature  could  be  given  in 
a  discursive  judgment  only  through  the  connections  of  the 
understanding,  so  in  our  regressus  we  can  only  retrace  the 
very  pathway  of  antecedents  and  consequents  which  the 
operation  of  the  understanding  has  previously  cast  up  in  its 
connecting  agency.  It  were  in  vain,  therefore,  to  attempt 
any  regressus  in  the  pathway  of  nature's  development  ex- 
cept as  we  must  step  from  the  conditioned  up  to  the  condi- 
tion perpetually.  The  function  of  the  understanding  is 
wholly  employed  in  the  work  of  concluding  in  discursive 
judgments,  and  in  reference  to  phenomena  it  can  do  nothing 
but  connect  them  into  a  nature  of  things  through  their  ap- 
propriate notions,  and,  thus,  were  there  no  other  and  higher 
function  in  exercise,  we  should  never  find  any  higher  want 
than  that  there  should  be  given  an  unhindered  development 


398  THE    EEASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

to  nature  in  the  connection  of  cause  and  event,  and  an  un- 
obstructed passage  to  the  march  of  thought  down  the  series 
in  an  indefinite  progressus  or  a  reflex  returning  up  the  series 
in  an  unbroken  rei,*restjus.  The  underijtai.ding  finds  no  dis- 
quiet from  its  confinement  within  the  conditions  of  nature, 
for  its  endow^ment  of  function  capacitates  it  for  movin^j  only 
within  the  fixed  series  of  nature,  and  it  can  possess  no  inter- 
est beyond  it.  Our  intuitions  would  as  soon  seek  to  over- 
leap and  circumscribe  space  and  time,  as  would  our  discur- 
sions  to  go  beyond  and  comprehend  nature. 

But  that  there  are  the  functions  of  a  higher  faculty  in 
action  is  quite  manifest,  not  only  from  our  past  philosophiz- 
ing on  the  sense  and  the  understanding,  but  also  from  the 
earnest  inquiry  spontaneously  and  perpetually  coming  up — 
Whence  is  nature  f  and  whither  does  it  tend  f  There  are 
the  stragglings  of  a  faculty  within  whose  interest  it  is  to 
overleap  nature,  and  which  may  never  be  made  contented 
by  running  up  and  down  the  linked  series  in  the  conditions 
of  nature.  Discursive  thinking  up  to  the  highest  generali- 
zation and  down  to  the  lowest  analysis  can  not  satisfy.  No 
possible  conclusion  in  a  discursive  judgment,  whether  in  the 
abstract  or  the  concrete,  can  fill  this  craving  capacity.  There 
is  demanded  for  it  a  position  out  of  and  above  the  flowing 
stream  of  conditioned  changes,  whence  may  be  seen  the  un- 
conditioned source  in  which  they  have  all  originated,  and 
the  strong  and  steady  hand  that  holds  all  suspended  from  it 
self  and  gives  to  them  their  direction  toward  some  ultimate 
consummation.  But  this  interest  of  the  higher  faculty  al- 
ways exceeds  the  capabilities  of  the  lower  to  satisfy.  The 
sense,  in  its  pure  operations,  can  only  construct  for  itself  a 
pathway  by  conjoining  the  diversity  in  space  and  time,  and 


AN   A   PRIORI   POSITION   IN   THE   ABSOLUTE.  399 

can,  therefore,  never  issue  out  beyond  the  line  whicii  she 
carries  onward  herself  and  which  is  limited  in  her  own 
movement.  The  understanding  can  have  foothold  only  as  it 
may  step  from  the  conception  of  some  phenomenon  as  event 
to  an  antecedent  phenomenon  in  connection  by  its  cause; 
and  it  may,  therefore,  never  put  down  the  foot  beyond  the 
conception  of  that  which  is  an  attained  condition  for  its 
present  standing,  and  which  could  be  no  safe  stepping-stone 
were  it  not  itself  conceived  to  be  linked  to  a  still  higher 
condition.  The  aspirings  of  this  higher  faculty  and  the  ef- 
forts of  the  inferior  to  reach  and  satisfy  it,  throw  the  human 
mind  upon  a  tread-mill  which  forces  it  to  a  perpetual  but 
vain  toil,  compelling  to  a  continual  stepping  while  each  stair 
must  ever  slide  away  beneath  and  disappoint  the  hope  of 
any  permanent  landing-j^lace.  We  can,  in  this  way,  find  no 
link  in  the  series  which  will  permit  that  it  should  be  taken 
m  the  judgment  as  the  origin  of  all  others,  and  itself  unor- 
iginated  from  a  higher ;  and  if  we  assume  that  there  must 
be  such  somewhere  at  the  head  of  the  series,  this  is  merely 
because  the  higher  faculty  demands  some  ultimate  point 
upon  which  all  are  dependent,  but  which  is  only  assumed  to 
be  and  never  reached,  because  the  lower  faculty  can  never 
attain  unto  it. 

An  interminable  dialectic  is  thus  opened  from  the  very 
faculties  of  the  human  mind,  and  all  attempt  to  stop  the 
demand  in  the  interest  of  the  reason,  that  we  should  some- 
how issue  out  of  nature  and  find  its  Author  and  Governor,  is 
in  vain  ;  and  all  efibrt  in  any  possible  use  of  the  functions 
of  an  understanding  to  meet  this  demand  is  equally  in  vain. 
The  reason  is  too  enterprising,  to  submit  to  any  circumscrip- 
tion within  nature ;  the  understanding  is  too  limited  in  its 


400  THE    REASON     IN    ITS    IDEA. 

capacity,  to  be  able  that  it  should  ever  unbar  the  gate  and 
point  the  way  to  the  supernatural.  The  discursive  faculty 
must  ever  keep  within  the  conditions  of  the  space  and  time- 
determinations,  and  must,  therefore,  ever  pass  through  the 
connective  notions  of  substance  cause  and  reciprocal  influ- 
ence in  concluding  in  judgments  ;  and  that  which  may  not 
be  brought  within  the  conditions  of  such  connectives  must 
forever,  to  it,  be  not  merely  the  unattainable  but  the  utterly 
unintelligible.  We  are  thus  forced  to  dispense  in  this  part 
of  our  work  with  all  use  of  the  understanding,  and  can  see 
that  if  the  supernatural  may  in  any  manner  be  attained,  it 
must  be  in  the  use  of  the  reason  only.  The  faculty  in  whose 
interest  the  want  originates,  must  rely  upon  its  own  resources 
alone  to  attain  to  that  which  may  satisfy  it.  It  is  its  own 
operation  for  comprehending  universal  nature  that  we  wish 
to  attain  in  a  complete  and  systematic  process,  and  thus 
possess  the  entire  faculty  of  the  reason  in  its  idea.  In  this 
we  shall  find  how  it  is  possible  that  a  nature  of  things  may 
be  comprehended  ;  and  according  to  which,  if  in  fact  this 
ever  is  done,  nature  necessarily  must  be  comprehended. 
The  finding  of  such  2^  fact  must  belong  to  the  second  chap- 
ter of  the  Reason,  while  here  we  are  intent  only  on  attain- 
ing the  systematic  process  as  ideal  As  preliminary  to  all 
progress  in  this  work,  it  is  first  of  all  necessary  that  we 
attain  our  a  priori  position  of  overlooking  this  whole  pro- 
vince, and  in  the  light  of  which  our  whole  investigation 
must  be  conducted. 

We  make  abstraction,  then,  utterly  of  all  that  is  phe- 
nomenal, and  therefore  dispense  with  the  use  of  all  the 
functions  of  the  sense  both  in  the  sensibility  and  in  the  con- 
structing agency.     By  thus  making  abstraction  of  all  that 


AN   A   PRIORI    POSITION   IN   THE   ABSOLUTE.    401 

is  phenomenal,  we  dispense  also  with  all  the  operation  of  the 
understanding,  which  must  go  from  phenomenon  to  phenom- 
enon through  the  connecting  notion.  The  phenomenal  is 
gone  and  there  is  nothing  to  connect,  and  the  notional  as  a 
connective  only  remains,  and  the  functions  of  the  under- 
standing have  not  the  necessary  conditions  for  their  opera- 
tion. They  can  connect  in  judgments  only  according  to  the 
sense,  when  that  may  give  its  phenomena ;  but  here  nothing 
of  the  sense  remains.  We  have  then  the  notional  only,  as 
the  reason  had  supplied  it  for  thieJuse  of  the  understanding 
in  the  connecting  of  the  phenomena  in  the  sense.  We  thus 
have  nature  in  its  substances,  causes,  and  reciprocal  influ- 
ences, as  things  in  themselves,  and  as  they  must  be  deter- 
mined to  exist  by  any  intelligences  who  should  know  things 
directly  in  their  essence,  without  any  organs  of  sensibility 
to  give  to  them  a  mode  of  appearance  as  phenomena.  Hav- 
ing thus  wholly  done  away  with  the  phenomenal  and  the 
coming  and  departing  of  appearances  ever  varying,  and 
retaining  only  the  notional  which  is  permanent,  we  do  away 
with  all  significancy  and  use  of  the  separate  places  in  space 
and  the  separate  periods  in  time  which  the  definite  phenom- 
ena severally  occupied.  Substance  in  its  causality  is,  but  no 
inhering,  adhering,  or  cohering  qualities  are.  The  true 
ground  and  essential  being  of  nature  is  conceived,  but  not 
the  mode  of  its  appearance  as  phenomenal  world  in  the 
sense. 

We  have  already  made  ourselves  somewhat  conversant 
with  this  pure  understanding-conception  of  space-filling  and 
time-enduring  substance,  which  the  reason  supplies  for  the 
understanding  in  order  that  it  may  determine  phenomena  in 
the  one  common  space  and  one  common  time.     We  would 


402  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

now  take  it  move  immediately  within  the  mind's  eye,  and 
endeavor  to  attain  a  clear  reason-conception  of  what  it  must 
be.  We  have  simply  considered  it  as  force^  which  in  its 
very  conception  involves  an  antagonism,  but  have  not  at- 
tempted to  attain  any  conception  of  distinguishable  forces, 
and  thus  of  distinct  substances  in  their  causality.  Nor  need 
we  now  go  into  any  very  extended  disquisition  on  these 
topics,  a  very  few  considerations  being  sufficient  for  all  pres- 
ent purposes,  while  a  more  complete  examination  will  be 
found  in  the  Rational  Cosmolgy. 

We  here  need  only  to  notice  that  different  substances  are 
forces  differently  modified.  The  living  animal  has  a  sensory 
which  in  its  excitabiUty  to  appetite  is  force  for  locomotion ; 
the  living  plant  has  no  sentient  nature  to  be  awakened  in  an 
appetite,  and  has  no  locomotive  force,  yet  still  an  appetency 
to  take  in  and  incorporate  with  itself  that  nourishment 
w^hich  lies  contiguous  to  its  own  organization,  and  thus  a 
force  of  assimilation  for  its  own  development ;  the  mineral 
gathers  about  a  nucleus  by  super-position  that  which  is 
homogeneous  to  itself,  and  thus  a  force  of  crystallization ; 
many  earths  have  their  chemical  affinities,  and  thus  a  force 
of  cohesion :  and  fluids  and  erases  their  affinities  which  o^ive 
a  force  of  combination  ;  magnetism,  electricity,  and  galvan- 
ism have  their  transmissions  of  influence  through  counter- 
currents  and  thus  a  bi-polar  force,  and  gravity  has  every 
where  an  antagonism  in  its  attraction  and  repulsion ;  while 
light  and  heat  are  diremptive  forces  that  push  from  a  center 
and  are  necessarily  imponderable.  And  here,  let  it  be  noted, 
that  the  higher  force  is  always  superinduced  upon  the  lower 
forces  and  adapts  itself  to  them,  perhaps  modifying  but  not 
destroying  them.     The  higher  holds  all  the  lower  in  com- 


AN   A   PRIORI   POSITION   IN   THE   ABSOLDTE.    403 

binatioii  and  subserviency  to  its  own  ends,  but  can  neither 
exclude  nor  annihilate  them.  The  force  of  animal  life  holds 
also  that  of  assimilation  in  vegetable  life ;  and  vegetable  life 
has  the  forces  of  crystallization,  chemical  cohesion,  the  bi- 
polar forces,  and  gravitation,  all  retained  in  subservient  com- 
bination ;  and  so  the  crystal  has  its  chemical  bi-polar  and 
gi'avitating  forces,  while  the  crystallizing  force  overrules  all 
the  others  and  holds  them  subordinate  to  its  own  end.  We 
shall  not  here  attempt  to  trace  the  a  priori  law  through  all 
these  distinguishable  forces.  Past  a  doubt  such  a  law 
exists,  and  determines  how  each  distinguishable  substance 
must  be  /  and  determining  how  the  substance  in  its  causal- 
ity must  be  will  determine  also  how  its  modes  of  phenom- 
enal manifestation  in  the  sense  must  be,  and.  thus  M^hat  quali- 
ties and  events  must  appear.  But  we  are  not  here  at  all 
concerned  with  the  tracing  of  nature  in  its  substance  down- 
ward, as  it  must  develop  itself  in  an  experience  in  the  sense; 
and  only  concerned  in  retracing  its  conception  upward  to  a 
supernatural  Author. 

We  will  then,  having  made  abstraction  of  the  phenom- 
enal, now  make  an  abstraction  of  all  the  superimposed  dis- 
tinguishable forces,  and  retain  only  the  most  simple  and 
that  which  is  primary  and  present  in  all,  viz.,  the  force  of 
gravity.  In  this  we  retain  all  that  is  essential  to  a  space- 
filling and  time-enduring  force,  and  thus  all  that  is  essential 
in  the  notion  of  substance  with  its  causahty.  Let  there  be 
the  reason-concej^tion  of  an  everywhere  antagonistic  force, 
and  we  shall  in  this  have  substance  with  its  causal  laws  of 
attraction,  repulsion,  inertia,  impenetrability,  motion  by  im- 
pulse, etc. ;  and  thus,  as  it  were,  the  frame-work  or  elemen- 
tary rudiments  of  a  nature   of  things,   without  regarding 


404  THEEEASOXIXITSIDEA. 

whatever  other  distinguishable  forces  and  thus  different  sub- 
stances and  causes  may  be  superinduced  upon  this.  "What- 
ever may  be  thus  superinduced,  we  may  know  that  it  can 
not  exclude  or  extinguish  this  force  of  gravity.  This  must 
surely  be  as  extensive  as  nature ;  for  it  is  the  primal  force 
upon  which  all  other  superinduced  forces  must  rest,  and  by 
which  they  must  all  be  conditioned.  We  have  in  this  all 
that  is  necessary  for  an  a  priori  representation  of  a  univer- 
sal nature  of  things  in  itself,  and  not  in  phenomenal  ap- 
pearance. 

We  may,  then,  take  any  point  in  this  primary  space- 
filling force,  and  if  it  is  not  itself  a  center,  it  will  be  tend- 
ing to  some  center  of  gravity.  When  we  approach  that 
center  of  gravity,  if  it  is  not  itself  an  ultimate  central  point, 
that  point  with  all  the  sphere  which  turns  upon  it  will  be 
tending  to  som^  further  point,  and  thus  we  might  move  on- 
ward through  worlds  and  systems  indefinitely.  Can  the 
reason  take  its  stand  upon  some  central  point,  toward  which 
the  universe  of  matter  shall  gravitate,  and  find  an  author 
and  primal  originating  source  for  it,  without,  needing  any 
higher  point  of  antagonism  ?  Such  ultimate  point  we  now 
assume  in  conception,  and  the  task  of  the  reason  is,  to  show 
how  it  is  possible  that  that  point,  and  thus  all  the  universal 
sphere  that  tends  toward  it,  may  be  originated  and  sustained. 
In  the  comprehension  of  that  one  central  point  of  all  antag- 
onism we  comprehend  the  universe  of  nature.  And,  here, 
to  prepare  the  way  for  attaining  that  pure  ideal  which  must 
be  the  compass  for  reason's  comprehension  of  nature,  it  is 
quite  important  that  we  attain  to  a  clear  reason-conception 
of  this  central  force  upon  which  universal  nature  must 
repose. 


AN   A   PKIOPwI   POSITION   IN  THE    ABSOLUTE.  406 

Conceive  of  two  congealed  pencils,  such  that  when  their 
points  are  pressed  together  the  pressure  shall  equally  hquefy 
both,  and  then  will  the  liquefaction  accumulate  itself  about 
the  point  of  contact,  and  if  no  disturbing  force  intervene 
the  fluid  will  perfectly  ensphere  itself  about  that  point,  en- 
larging as  the  pressure  continues,  and  the  liquefaction  accu- 
mulates. The  rigid  pencils  would  equilibrate  the  pressure 
by  an  opposite  unyielding  resistance,  and  though  there 
would  be  force  at  the  point  of  contact,  it  would  all  be  re- 
tained in  that  point,  and  there  could  be  no  accumulation. 
The  liquefaction  at  the  point  permits  a  perpetual  coming  in 
and  going  off  from  the  point,  and  in  the  continued  pressure 
a  continual  coming  in  and  going  off,  and  thus  a  continual 
accumulation.  This  must  ensphere  itself  about  the  point, 
for  the  protrusion  from  the  point  must  constantly  be  equal- 
izing itself  in  all  directions,  as  the  antagonisms  push  each 
liquefied  pencil  back  from  the  point  of  contact  and  out  upon 
itself  If  now  we  will  abstract  the  phenomenal,  and  only 
retain  in  the  mind's  eye  that  which  is  the  space-filHng  thing 
in  itself,  we  shall  have  the  pure  notion  of  force  as  a  space- 
filling substance.  The  substantial  being  is  the  force,  and 
the  phenomenal  is  the  mode  in  which  this  space-filling  force 
gives  its  appearance  through  the  sense.  In  our  supposition 
above,  for  illustration,  we  have  assumed  pencils  as  sense- 
phenomena,  but  that  purpose  being  answered,  we  would 
now  retain  the  pencil-points  in  contact  only  in  the  mind's 
eye,  as  two  pure  activities  in  counter-action,  and  themselves 
doing  what  the  liquid  pencils  indicated  that  the  pressure 
was  doing  with  the  fluid,  viz.,  ensphering  itself  about  the 
point  of  counter-agency.     We  would  make  the  mind's  eyo 


406  THE    EEASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

follow  the  force,  and  not  now  use  the  bodily  eye  that  fol- 
lowed the  phenomenon  which  the  force  determined. 

The  antagonist  activities  in  the  point  of  contact  must 
have  each  a  perpetually  augmenting  energy  springing  from 
its  own  source,  and  this  will  secure  that  each  must  press  the 
other  out  and  back  upon  itself  as  the  augmenting  energy 
comes  in,  and  thus  determine  a  perpetual  generation  of  force 
at  the  point,  and  distribution  of  it  equally  all  around  the 
primal  central  position.  Each  antagonism  as  crowded  back 
becomes  an  energy  still  pushing  toward  the  center,  and  this 
equalizes  itself  all  around  the  center,  and  all  points  out  of 
the  center  perpetually  react  upon  the  center  as  the  gener- 
ating forces  accumulate  about  it,  and  thus  this  central  force 
must  have  more  reaction  upon  it  as  the  sphere  enlarges,  and 
when  the  sphere  has  so  enlarged  as  in  its  reactions  upon  the 
center  to  equilibrate  the  generating  force  at  the  center,  the 
generation  of  forces  can  proceed  no  further,  and  the  sphere 
ceases  to  grow.  An  infinite  agency  at  the  center  can  aug- 
ment the  sphere  mdefinitely,  at  pleasure.  So  a  primal 
space-filling  force  as  a  veritable  substance  may  be.  Other 
distinguishable  forces  may  be  superinduced  upon  this,  and 
we  may  have  cohesive,  crystalline,  vegetable,  and  animal 
bodies  as  distinctive  substances,  but  whether  filling  a  few 
feet  of  space,  or  the  place  of  revolving  worlds  and  systems, 
they  will  all  alike  gravitate  toward,  and  be  controlled  by 
this  central  power. 

With  a  clear  conception  of  such  force  and  this  kept  be- 
fore the  mind's  eye,  as  truly  space-filling  substance,  we  can 
rcad'ly  determine  d  priori  many  things  which  material  sub- 
stance must  phenomenally  manifest  through  the  sense,  and 
follow  out  the  physical  causation  which  will  :ii  these  forces 


AN    A   PHI  OBI   POSITION   IN   TUE   ABSOLUTE.   40V 

be  everywhere  working  through  universal  nature.  The  ma- 
terial universe  must  be  spherical ;  must  have  its  peripheral 
limit ;  must  have  its  poles  in  the  hue  of  the  antagonism 
working  at  the  center ;  must  have  repulsion  from  the  center 
as  the  cube  of  the  radius  of  the  sphere,  and  must  have  re- 
action toward  the  center  in  each  radius,  and  which  will  be 
attraction  at  the  center,  as  the  square  of  the  radius ;  and  as 
both  the  attraction  and  repulsion  regularly  diminish  from 
the  center,  they  must  both  be  as  the  quantity  of  outgoing 
and  reacting  forces,  and  ever  in  the  ratio,  the  repulsion  as 
spherically  self-balanced,  inversely  as  the  cube  of  the  dis- 
tance, and  the  attraction  as  circularly  self-balanced,  inversely 
as  the  square  of  the  distance ;  with  many  other  cosmical 
principles,  as  in  Creator  and  Creation,  has  ah-eady  been 
determined  and  correctly  stated.  But  it  is  the  interest  of 
reason  here,  to  follow  out  this  inherent  cognition  of  sub- 
stance and  cause  in  the  opposite  direction  ;  not  to  trace  the 
forces  as  they  work  down  into  nature,  and  work  out  an  in- 
telligible and  orderly  cosmos,  but  as  they  may  lead  upward 
to  the  cognition  of  the  supernatural.  The  antagonist  agen- 
cies generate  force  and  are  determining  conditions  for  all  the 
development  of  nature  downward,  but  in  their  single  and 
separate  energizing  they  have  neither  substance  nor  phe- 
nomenon above.  The  central  force  can  sustain  and  give 
control  to  the  universe  and  become  to  all  the  physical  causes 
and  changes  of  the  universe  that  which  can  be  traced  to  no 
higher  physical  condition.  All  force  and  change  originate 
and  propagate  themselves  from  hence,  and  there  is  no  higher 
point  of  force,  or  possibihty  of  phenomenal  manifestations. 
The  single  energies  are  not  physical  force,  and  can  impress 
^.hemselves  upon  no  material  organs,  that  they  may  give 


408  THE    EEASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

.  content  for  any  phenomena.     They  belong  wholly  to  the 
sj)iritual  and  not  to  the  material  world. 

But  it  is  a  fair  and  for  the  reason  a  necessary  inquiry, 
whence  these  energies  that  constitute  in  their  antagonism 
the  space-filling  forces  ?  In  what  source  may  we  find  these 
acts  which  counteract  to  become  indentified?  All  force, 
and  thus  all  of  material  nature  is  a  compound  and  has  at 
least  a  duality  ;  in  what  may  we  find  a  primordial  and  indi- 
visible unity  f  Nature  fills  place  in  its  own  space  and 
period  in  its  own  time,  and  space  and  time  as  common  for 
all  can  only  be  determined  in  the  one  common  nature  ;  where 
shall  we  find  the  grand  source  and  terminus  out  of  which, 
and  into  which,  both  nature  and  nature's  space  and  time 
may  come  and  depart  together  ?  How  shall  we  find  and 
know  Him  to  whom  the  conditions  of  nature,  and  of  nature's 
space  and  time  are  utterly  impertinent  and  unmeaning  ?  All 
these  and  more  such  queries  the  reason  must  ever  be  pro- 
pounding, and  when  nature  lies  before  us  only  in  the  vague 
apprehension  commonly  taken  of  material  substance  and 
physical  cause,  it  were  vain  and  presumptuous  to  attempt  any 
answer.  There  is  nothing  that  gives  traces  of  wisdom  and 
rational  principle  in  the  dry  and  dead  matter,  and  thus  no 
foot-prints  of  the  Maker  to  lead  us  out  to  His  dwelling- 
place,  nor  any  marks  to  tell  us  how  He  made  the  world  or 
indicate  how  He  manages  its  movements.  But  with  our 
clear  conception  of  forces  as  substantial  and  dynamical, 
nature  has  already  in  her  intrinsic  being  the  lines  that  lead 
downward  in  cosmical  order  and  beauty  not  only,  but  also 
lines  which  lead  upward  to  a  wholly  supernatural  Creator 
and  Governor.  The  tracing  of  such  hues  upward  may  be  as 
reverent  as  the  tracing  of  them  downwara  maj  bo  patiefr 


AN    A   PRIORI   POSITION   IN   THE   ABSOLUTE.  409 

and  careful,  and  the  results  may  be  as  sure  for  the  superna^ 
tural  as  for  the  natural.  Nature  exists  in  substantial,  im- 
penetrable, space-filling  forces,  and  reposes  on  the  grand 
central  counteragency ;  whence  comes  this  central  counter- 
working of  simple  spiritual  activities?  If  they  work  on 
abidingly,  the  universe  is  steadfast ;  if  they  cease  their  ener- 
gizing, the  universe  at  once  collapses.  Withdraw  the  cen- 
tral activities,  and  nature  is  at  once  extinguished;  who 
originates  and  perpetuates  this  central  w^orking  ? 

In  some  way  the  reason  must  come  to  the  cognition  of  a 
source  in  its  simplicity,  that  may  at  pleasure  energize  in  the 
single  acts  that  counterwork  and  constitute  the  central  force, 
and  which  through  this  central  force  may  generate  and  dis- 
tribute the  substantial  forces  which  constitute  the  material 
universe.  In  this  source  must  be  a  directing  intelligence 
that  conditions  all  things,  and  which  conditioning  must  orig- 
inate here  with  no  higher  author.  Substance  in  its  efficient 
causality  is  ground  and  source  for  all  phenomena,  but  this 
intelligent  agent  must  in  His  own  simplicity  be  the  Creator 
of  the  force  that  constitutes  universal  nature,  and  must  put 
it  out  in  the  void  which  from  its  presence  only  is  a  void  no 
longer.  The  Creator  must  stand  absolved  from  all  condi- 
tions that  can  arise  ah  extra  to  Himself,  even  from  any  inter- 
nal antagonism  and  force  which,  as  action  and  'reaction, 
would  demand  that  He  be  a  composite  being.  His  only  con- 
ditions must  be  such  as  are  self-imposed  in  the  dignity  of 
His  own  transcendental  unity.  It  is  not,  thus,  an  uncondi- 
tioned which  is  given  in  abstraction — merely  cutting  off  all 
occasion  for  changes  and  successions  above,  and  assuming  a 
source  and  cause  for  all  below — this  the  space-filling  force 
and  substance  of  nature  itself  is.     It  must  be  a  positive  and 

18 


410  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

intelligeutly  affirmed  unconditioned,  whose  only  end  of 
action  is  found  by  Himself  in  His  own  being.  Such  alone 
can  stand  above  nature,  and  condition  nature,  without  the 
reciprocity  of  a  conditioning  back  upon  Himself  from  nature. 
As  thus  positively  unconditioned,  we  give  to  this  concep- 
tion of  a  supernatural  being  the  high  name,  which  must  be 
His  own  prerogative  and  incommunicable  possession — the 
Absolute.  Not  absolved  from  the  claims  of  His  own  excel- 
lency and  dignity,  for  such  absolute  could  be  no  personal 
God,  but  wholly  absolved  from  all  ab  extra  relations  and 
conditions.  He  is  a  law  to  Himself  and  thus  His  action 
always  self-determined,  but  nothing  out  of  Himself  imposes 
any  law  upon  Him.  The  absolute  in  the  meaning  of  infinite 
space,  or  unconditioned  cause  would  be  no  help  in  compre- 
hending the  universe  ;  our  only  compass  must  be  the  Being 
w^ho  self-controlled,  stands  absolved  from  all  other  controll- 
ing. 

The  whole  problem  of  the  reason,  therefore,  is  seen  to 
be  in  this  determination  of  the  absolute.  Nature  can  be 
comprehended  by  the  reason  in  no  other  possible  manner  than  as 
encompassed  in  the  being  of  such  an  absolute ;  and  the 
determination  of  this,  is  the  determination  of  the  possibility 
of  an  operation  of  comprehension.  In  the  pure  ideal  of 
the  absolute  we  are  to  find  omv  a  priori  position  for  over- 
looking nature,  and  thereby  determining  how  its  comprehen- 
sion is  possible ;  and  in  this  we  shall  have  the  entire  func- 
tion of  a  comprehending  faculty,  higher  than  that  of  the 
sense  which  only  conjoins,  and  higher  also  than  the  under- 
standing which  only  connects,  even  the  faculty  of  the  rea- 
son which  comprehends  all  that  may  be  conjoined  or  con- 
nected.    Such  will  be  the  function  of  the  Reason  in  its  Idea. 


AN   k   PRIORI   POSITION   IN   THE   ABSOLUTE.    411 

It  is  quite  important  here  to  cany  along  with  us,  in  this 
part  of  our  work,  the  abiding  conviction  that  we  have  passed 
completely  out  of  the  domain  of  the  sense  and  of  that  of  the 
understanding  also.  It  will  be  wholly  perposterous — when 
we  have  made  abstraction  of  all  that  is  phenomenal,  and 
transcended  all  that  the  operations  of  conjunction  and  of 
connection  have  prdriuced,  and  have  taken  upon  us  the  task 
of  an  a  j^riori  examination  of  the  comprehending  faculty — if 
Ave  shall  any  where  unawares  permit  that  there  be  a  sliding 
away  from  this  pure  province  of  the  supernatural,  and  we 
be  found  dealing  again  with  the  conceptions  which  are  con- 
ditioned to  nature  and  the  modes  of  space  and  time.  The 
absolute  is  not  nature  and  possesses  nothing  in  common  with 
nature,  and  may  neither  be  constructed  in  place  and  period 
nor  connected  in  substance  cause  and  reciprocal  influence. 
The  entire  phenomenal  and  notional  of  nature  is  so  wholly 
out  of  and  beneath  the  absolute,  that  although  originating 
in  and  depending  upon  the  absolute,  yet  may  it  never  be 
conceived  as  reacting  and  thereby  throwing  back  any  condi- 
tions upon  the  absolute.  We  may  have  nothing  to  do  with 
any  conditions  here  reaching  back  from  nature,  and  putting 
us  aojain  to  our  old  work  of  discursive  connections. 


SECTION    II. 

THE   DETERMINATION    OF   PERSONALITY  TO   THE   ABSOLUTE. 

The  reason-conception  of  the  absolute,  which  the  reason 
gives  to  itself,  is  above  the  notional ;  as  the  understanding- 
conception  of  the  notion,   which  the  reason   gave  to  the 


il2  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

understanding,  is  above  the  phenomenal.  To  distinguish  this 
pure  reason-conception  from  the  pure  understanding-concep- 
tion of  the  Notion,  we  here  give  to  it  a  distinctive  name  and 
call  it  the  Ideal.  This  ideal  of  the  absolute  is  to  be  the 
compass  for  comprehending  nature,  as  the  notional  was  the 
medium  for  connecting  phenomena  in  a  nature  of  things.  In 
this  we  are  to  determine  how  it  may  Be  known,  as  a  syn- 
thetical proposition,  that  nature  must  have  its  author  ;  as  in 
that  it  was  determined  how  it  might  be  demonstrated,  that 
phenomena  must  be  inherent  in  substance,  adherent  in  cause, 
and  coh-erent  in  reciprocal  influence.  The  phenomena  were 
in  distinct  and  definite  places  and  periods,  and  could  not  be 
determined  in  one  whole  of  space  and  of  time,  except 
through  the  media  of  such  notions  as  gave  universality  to 
all  places  in  one  whole  of  space  and  all  periods  in  one  whole 
of  time.  In  this  manner  the  phenomena  in  the  sense  and 
the  things  and  events  in  the  understanding  came  very  well 
to  be  united,  and  the  passage  from  the  sense  to  the  under- 
standing was  efiected,  and  the  synthetical  propositions — all 
qualities  must  have  substance  ;  all  events  must  have  cause  ; 
all  concomitant  events  must  have  reciprocity  of  influence — 
came  to  be  readily  demonstrated,  when  without  such  a 
priori  demonstration  they  could  only  be  used  as  assump- 
tions. And  now  the  same  result  of  an  a  priori  demonstra- 
tion of  a  synthetical  proposition  is  to  be  determined,  but 
with  this  diff*erence,  the  conceptions  of  the  phenomena  and 
the  things  were,  the  one  in  the  sense  and  the  other  in  the 
understanding ;  while  here,  the  conceptions  of  a  nature  of 
things  and  of  an  author  of  nature  are,  the  one  in  the  under- 
standing and  the  other  in  the  reason.  The  passage  from 
the  sense  to  the  understanding  and  from  the  understanding 


ELEMENTS     OP    C  O  M  P  R  E  H  E  N  S  I  O  X.  413 

to  the  reason  both  demand  a  synthesis,  and  can  neither  pos- 
sibly be  effected  by  any  analyses  descending  nor  any  general- 
izations ascending ;  and  as  we  have  found  the  passage  for 
the  first  in  the  notional,  so  now  we  are  to  find  the  passage 
for  the  second  in  this  pure  ideal. 

And  yet  still  further,  as  we  found  the  very  essence  of 
substance  hi  its  causality  to  be  a  space-filling  and  time-endur- 
ing force^  and  that  as  counter-agency  it  filled  its  place  in 
space  from  a  permanent  center  and  might  thus  determine  all 
places  in  its  own  space,  and  also  as  enduring  center  it  might 
thus  determine  all  periods  in  its  own  time  ;  so  now  we  must 
find  the  very  essence  of  the  absolute  to  be  a  spaceless  and 
timeless  personality^  who,  as  above  all  the  modes  of  expan- 
sion in  space  and  duration  in  time,  may  be  not  nature  but 
supernatural;  not  thing  but  person.  If  conditioned  to  the 
one  whole  of  nature,  of  sj^ace,  and  of  time,  then  it  must  be 
of  the  substance  and  causality  of  nature,  and  can  never  be 
the  Divinity  above  nature.  No  matter  whether  all  of  the 
phenomenal  be  abstracted  from  it  or  not ;  in  naked  substance 
and  cause  it  is  but  pure  force,  space- occupying  and  time- 
abiding,  and  must  react  upon  nature  and  nature  upon  it,  and 
the  compound  thus  effected  must  still  be  nature  altogether. 
And  no  matter  whether  it  be  carried  above  all  phenomena ; 
it  is  then  pure  force  in  its  antagonism  at  the  center,  and  as 
undeveloped  must  yet  go  out  in  development,  and  such  is 
only  nature  in  its  rudimental  germ,  and  not  at  all  nature's 
author  and  God.  Except  as  Ave  determine  the  absolute  to 
be  personality  wholly  out  of  and  beyond  all  the  conditions 
and  modes  of  space  and  time,  we  can  by  no  possibility  leave 
nature  for  the  supernatural.  The  clear-sighted  and  honest 
intellect,  resting  in  this  conclusion  that  the  conditions  of 


414  THE     REASON    IN    ITS     IDEA. 

space  and  time  can  not  be  transcended,  will  be  Atheistic  5 
while  the  dekided  intellect,  which  has  put  the  false  play  of 
the  discursive  understanding  in  its  abstract  speculations  for 
the  decisions  of  an  all-embracing  reason,  and  deems  itself  so 
fortunate  as  to  have  found  a  deity  within  the  modes  of  space 
and  time,  will  be  Pantheistic.  The  Pantheism  will  be  ideal 
and  transcendent,  when  it  reaches  its  conclusions  by  a  logi- 
cal process  in  the  abstract  law  of  thought ;  and  it  will  be 
material  and  empiric  when  it  concludes  from  the  fixed  con- 
nections of  cause  and  effect  in  the  generalized  law  of  nature ; 
but  in  neither  case  is  the  Pantheism  any  other  than  Atheism, 
for  the  Deity,  circumscribed  in  the  conditions  of  space  and 
time  with  nature,  is  but  nature  still,  and  whether  in  abstract 
thought  or  generalized  reality,  is  no  God.  It  becomes  Pan- 
cosmism  rather  than  Pantheism. 

This  determination  of  personality  to  the  absolute,  and 
which  takes  it  out  from  all  the  modes  of  space  and  time,  is 
the  only  possible  way  in  which  it  may  be  demonstrated  how 
nature  may  have  an  author,  which  author  shall  not  be  nature 
%till  and  yet  demanding  for  itself  an  author.  In  such  a  pure 
ideal  as  the  absolute  in  its  personality,  a  compass  is  given  by 
which  the  reason  may  comprehend  nature,  and  the  completed 
process  of  comprehension  thus  effected  is  a  faculty  of  the 
reason  in  idea.  This,  therefore,  is  a  necessary,  and  our  next 
work,  to  determine  personality  to  the  absolute.  This  will 
give  all  the  necessary  elements  in  the  work  of  compreiien 
BiON.  We  termed  unity,  plurality,  and  totality  the  primitive 
Elements  in  the  operation  of  Conjunction  ;  and  also  sub- 
stance and  accidence  in  space,  or,  as  the  same  thing,  source 
and  event  in  time,  and  cause  and  effect,  and  action  and  re- 
action, the  primitive  Elements  in  the  operation  of  Connec 


ELEMENTS     OF    C  O  M  P  R  E  n  E  N  S  I  O  N  .  415 

tion;  we  will  now  term  these  when  found,  the  primitive 
Elements  in  tlie  operation  of  Comprehension. 

It  will  result  here,  as  in  each  of  the  former  operations, 
that  the  primitive  elements  will  be  three  in  number ;  and 
also  as  in  each  former  case,  that  the  first  and  second  elements 
will  stand  to  each  other  in  an  antithesis,  while  the  third  will 
be  the  synthesis  or  point  of  indifference  between  the  first 
two. 

1.  Antagonism,  by  which  is  meant  the  point  in  which 
tvv'O  agencies  meet  and  counter-work,  determines  position  in 
space.  The  accumulated  and  ensphered  force  determines  place 
in  space ;  and,  as  fixed  in  its  center,  the  entire  sphere  occu- 
pies perpetually  the  same  place  in  space.  From  this  space- 
filling substance  in  its  permanence  the  one  whole  of  space 
is  determined,  inasmuch  as  its  permanent  place  gives  a  datura 
for  determining  direction  and  distance  from  its  center  to  all 
the  places  in  space  which  it  occupies.  But  if  we  were  to 
conceive  of  its  extinction,  though  it  were  impossible  to  con- 
ceive that  space  itself  were  extinguished,  yet  it  would  be 
wholly  impossible  to  determine  sameness  of  place,  and  thus 
impossible  to  determine  the  same  wholeness  of  all  space. 
The  conception  of  a  new  antagonism  would  give  again  new 
position,  and  the  engendered  force  would  give  again  new 
definite  place,  and  thus  a  determined  whole  of  all  space  ;  but 
whether  this  whole  of  all  space  were  the  same  as  the  former 
whole  of  all  space  could  no  more  be  determined  than  whether 
the  places  in  which  the  reflected  moon  and  stars  in  two  dif 
ferent  lakes  appeared  were  the  same  whole  space.  The  first 
position  and  place,  and  thus  wholeness  of  space,  are  lost  to  all 
determination  so  soon  as  the  space-filling  force  is  extinct, 
inasmuch  as  there  is  then  nothing  by  which   permanency  of 


416  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

position  and  place  can  he  indicated.  It  thus  follo\\  s,  that 
the  single  pure  agency  which  can  have  no  antagonism,  caA 
have  nothing  to  which  the  conditions  of  space  have  any  sig- 
nificancy.  It  can  never  he  determined  in  position,  place, 
nor  in  the  sameness  of  any  one  whole  space. 

So  also  this  point  of  meeting  in  action  from  whence 
counter-agency  takes  its  rise,  determines  instants  in  time. 
The  successive  counter-working^  and  accumulatino-  of  force 
and  continuance  of  changes  determines  period ;  and,  as 
reckoned  from  the  primal  instant  onward,  gives  a  datum 
for  determining  all  period  in  which  the  series  of  changes 
occur,  and  thus  of  determining  the  same  one  whole  of  time. 
But,  were  we  to  conceive  this  counter-agency  to  he  extin- 
guished, and  another  antagonism  with  its  determined  instants 
and  successive  periods  and  one  whole  of  time  to  be  determined: 
it  would  he  impossible  to  determine  that  the  two  wholes 
of  time  were  the  same  whole  of  time,  equally  as  much  so 
and  for  the  same  reason  as  to  determine  whether  the  succes- 
sions and  times  inherently  in  two  dreams  were  in  the  same 
whole  time.  There  would  be  no  perduring  source  which 
could  indicate  the  periods  of  its  own  changes.  It  thus  fol- 
lows, that  the  single  pure  agency  which  can  have  no  antagon- 
ism can  have  no  fixed  instant,  no  definite  period,  and  no 
determined  whole  of  time;  and  thus  to  it  none  of  the  condi- 
tions of  time  can  be  significant. 

Moreover,  in  this  antagonism  the  primal  condition  of  a 
nature  of  things  is  determined.  Its  counter-agency  engen- 
ders the  space-filling  substance  in  all  its  causality,  and 
evolves  the  successive  changes  as  cause  and  effect,  all  of 
which  in  their  conditioned  connections  depend  upoi  this  pri- 
Tial  condition ;  and  thus  all  of  nature  is  determined  in  this 


ELEMENTS     OF     COMPREHENSION.  41^ 

contra!  counter-working ;  and  if  any  other  distinguish  able 
forces  be  introduced,  they  must  be  superinduced  upon  this, 
foi'  this  primal  force  must  condition  all  that  shall  come 
vrithin  it.  It  thus  follows,  that  the  simple  pure  agency 
can  come  within  none  of  the  conditions  of  a  nature  of 
things ;  inasmuch  as  within  itself  there  can  never  be  an- 
tagonism, and  thus  can  never  give  an  engendered  force 
which  is  causahty  and  condition  for  all  of  nature,  and, 
therefore,  to  it  the  notions  of  substance,  cause,  and  recipro- 
cal influence  are  wholly  impertinent  and  insignificant. 

This  reason-conception  of  simple,  pure  activity  is  thus 
wholly  unconditioned  to  space,  time,  and  a  nature  of  things ; 
and  is  d  ^jriori  conditional  for  all  transcending  of  nature. 
It  we]*e  wholly  impossible  to  find  any  passage  out  from  na- 
ture to  the  supernatural,  except  in  this  reason-conception  of 
a  pure  agency  which  can  come  within  none  of  the  conditions 
that  belong  to  nature,  and  has  none  of  the  necessitated  con- 
nections of  a  discursive  judgment.  But  such  pure  activity 
is  the  conception  of  pure  spontaneity  ;  and  this  must  stand 
as  our  first  element  of  Personality. 

But  this  reason-conception  of  pure  spontaneity  must  be 
most  carefully  distinguished  from  what  sometimes  takes  the 
name  of  spontaneity  in  the  understanding,  and  which  be- 
longs to  nature.  Thus,  we  speak  of  the  spontaneous  pro- 
ductions of  nature ;  spontaneous  growth ;  spontaneous 
combustion,  etc.  Spontaneity  here  is  negative  only  of  ap- 
plied conditions.  The  earth  produced  its  fruits  without  the 
application  of  human  toil  as  a  condition ;  the  combustible 
took  fire  without  the  application  of  a  spark  or  flame  as  a 
condition.  But  in  neither  case  is  it  a  negative  of  all  condi- 
tion and  thus  an  exclusion  of  necessity.     There  is  an  inhe 

18* 


il8  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

rent  caupallty  already  in  possession,  and  in  virtue  of  which 
the  product  appears.  The  earth  is  ah-eady  cause  for  the 
germination  of  the  seeds  in  its  own  bosom  ;  the  combusti- 
ble is  cause  for  combustion  in  its  own  fermentation  ;  there 
is  no  need  for  the  application  of  any  other  causality  than 
that  already  in  possession.  But  this  efficiency  has  been 
transmitted  from  a  higher  causality,  and  is  thus  truly  condi- 
tioned in  its  antecedent.  The  causation  has  itself  been 
caused,  and  could  not  have  been  a  causa  caiAsans  had  it  not 
also  been  already  a  causa  causata.  It  is  wholly  a  discursive 
process  that  we  here  pursue,  and  the  efficiency  must  be  fol- 
lowed up  from  event  to  event,  the  subsequent  always  condi- 
tioned by  what  has  already  taken  place  in  the  antecedent. 
Nature  possesses  only  conditioned  causality,  and  though  it 
may  negative  all  applied  conditions  and  call  this  spontaneity, 
yet  can  it  never  negative  all  communicated  or  transmitted 
condition  and  be  pure  spontaneity. 

There  is  also,  sometimes,  a  passing  up  to  the  primal  con- 
ditions, and  by  a  negation  of  all  antecedents  an  assuming  of 
a  spontaneous  beginning  in  this  primal  condition.  But  such 
attains  no  positive  reason-cognition  of  spontaneity,  and  only 
an  arbitrary  negation  of  all  higher  conditioning.  The  only 
method  of  a  distinct  cognition  of  this  assumed  spontaneity 
is,  to  fix  the  mind's  eye  upon  a  force  in  a  point  of  counter- 
agency.  This  gives  the  genesis  of  a  substance  which  fills 
definite  place  in  space.  The  force  as  substance  in  its  causal 
ity,  begins  to  be  in  this  antagonism ;  and  above  this  it  is  not 
properly  substance  or  cause,  but  pure  act.  Causality  be- 
gins in  this  counter- working,  and  develops  itself  in  a  per- 
petual unfolding  of  new  conditioned  products.  Here,  there- 
fore, is  cause  in  its  highest  conception ;  unconditioned,  ex- 


ELEMENTS  OP  COMPREHENSION".      419 

cept  in  the  inherent  antagonism  which  is  its  o^'n  being. 
And  now,  this  is  sometimes  taken  to  be  the  Unconditioned  ; 
the  Absohite  Cause ;  the  Spontaneity  that  begets  nature ; 
and  that  in  which  not  only  all  philosophy  of  nature,  but  all 
science  must  terminate.  It  is  the  starting-point  for  thought, 
and  nature  must  be  evolved  from  it.  It  must  go  out  in 
effects,  filling  space  and  evolving  the  universe  from  its  own 
efficiency,  and  must  ever  work  on  in  the  interminable  pro- 
gressus  of  pushing  new  conditioned  products  from  the  last ; 
and  is  thereby  the  author  of  a  perpetually  unfolding  nature 
of  things.  The  author  of  nature  can  no  more  be  without 
the  universe,  than  the  universe  can  be  without  its  author. 
The  universe  is  but  the  perpetual  unfolding  of  the  abso- 
lute cause. 

But,  in  this  there  is  no  pare  spontaneity.  It  is  bound  in 
its  own  conditions,  and  is  under  a  necessity  to  develop  itself. 
It  is  not  nature's  author  as  supernatural  but  only  nature's 
germ  including  the  rudiments  of  a  universe,  and  is  as  much 
nature  at  the  first  as  in  any  successive  step  of  its  develop- 
ment. Causality  is  ever  counteraction  ;  and  thus  inherently 
conditioned  action ;  and  is  notional  for  the  understanding, 
not  pure  ideal  for  the  reason.  It  can  possibly  have  no  ele- 
ment of  personality  within  it,  and  thus  no  pure  spontaneity 
may  be  analyzed  from  it.  The  supernatural  is  not  absolute 
cause ;  this  is  an  absurdity,  inasmuch  as  cause  is  ever  inhe- 
re!. *ly  conditioned. 

The  reason-cognition  of  a  pure  spontaneity  must  be 
found  in  the  simple  activity,  and  not  in  any  force  which  is 
the  product  of  counter- activities.  The  substance  in  its  caus- 
ality originates  in,  and  can  not  itself  possess,  a  pure  sponta- 
neity.    The  counter-working   of    causation  must   be  tran- 


420  THE    REASON    IN     ITS    IDEA. 

scended,  or  we  only  mount  to  where  nature  begin' >,  but  we 
do  not  go  over  at  all  within  the  supernatural.  I^^ature  is 
connection  through  dynamical  conditions  ;  the  supernatural 
is  uncompounded,  uncounteracted  self-activity.  That  an 
author  of  nature  may  be  person  independent  of  nature,  he 
must  be  pure  activity,  neither  caused  by,  nor  conditioned  to, 
any  efficiency  imparted  or  transmitted  ah  extra.  If  this 
activity  stand  conditioned  to  any  thing  ah  extra^  then  does 
nature  reach  beyond  its  author;  and  he  is  comprehended 
and  no  compass  for  comprehending  nature.  The  absolute 
must  comprehend  all  counter-agency,  and  must  therefore  be 
pure  spontaneous  agency ;  and  in  this  is  found  the  first  es- 
sential element,  which  transcends  the  agency  that  is  com- 
pound and  conditioned  as  thing^  and  is  agency  in  its  own 
unconditioned  simplicity  as  person.  The  first  Element  in 
determining  personality  to  the  absolute,  and  thus  the  possi- 
bility of  comprehension,  is  pure  Spontaneity. 

2.  Pure  spontaneity  in  itself  is  wholly  blind  and  lawless. 
It  can  not  of  itself  he  sufficient  to  determine  personality  to 
the  absolute,  nor  give  the  compass  for  an  operation  of  com- 
prehension. There  must  be  some  end  to  which  the  action 
as  spontaneity  is  directed,  and  such  end  must  give  the  law 
to  the  action,  and  thus  as  antithesis  to  spontaneity  give  the 
cognition  of  spontaneity  controlled  and  determined.  But 
the  cognition  that  such  end  is  in  nature,  or  that  it  is  nature 
itself,  will  subject  the  spontaneity  to  nature,  and  at  once 
condition  the  absolute  in  necessity.  It  is,  only  that  nature 
may  be.  This  controlling  end  must  be  other  than  nature, 
out  of  and  independent  of  nature,  or  it  can  not  possibly  givo 
us  the  d  priori  condition  in  what  way  nature  itself  must  be. 
and  thus  comprehend  nature  in  the  eternal  design  and  rea- 


ELEMENTS     OF    COMPREHENSION.  421 

son  of  its  author.  As  above  nature,  that  end  which  is  to 
give  law  to  the  agency  creative  of  nature  must  be  super- 
natural. It  must  determine  how  nature  is  to  be,  while  yet 
nature  is  not  brought  into  bemg  ;  and  must  thus  be  control- 
ling over  the  spontaneity,  independent  of  any  and  all  condi- 
tions to  which  it  is  to  direct  the  spontaneous  agency  that  it 
may  give  them  their  birth.  The  absolute  itself  as  author  of 
nature  exists  alone  out  of  nature,  and  is  the  supernatural ; 
and  thus  this  end,  controlling  the  creative  agency  as  sponta- 
neity, must  be  in  the  absolute  itself.  This  must  be  its  own 
end,  and  thus  also  its  own  law ;  and  thereby  comes  out  the 
reason-conception  of  personality  in  this,  that  the  absolute  is 
pure  Will :  he  is  self-active  and  self-directed.  His  end,  and 
thus  his  law  of  action  is  not  in  nature ;  for  that  would  de- 
grade him  at  once  to  a  means,  and  a  thing  to  be  used  for  a 
further  end.  He  would  be,  only  that  nature  as  end  might 
be.  His  end  is  in  himself,  and  his  law  of  action  is  self 
imposed ;  and  he  thus  makes  nature  to  be  for  his  own  be- 
hoof That  spontaneity  may  become  personal  activity,,  and 
thus  a  wiir  which  may  behave — i.  e.,  have  possession  and 
control  of  its  own  agency — it  must  possess  an  end  in  itself, 
and  thus  impose  law  upon  itself,  and  thereby  be  autonomic. 
But  such  a  conception  of  end  and  law  in  the  absolute  itself, 
is  pure  autonomy ;  and  this  must  be  a  second  primitive 
element  in  personality. 

But  this  reason-cognition  of  pure  autonomy  is  not  very 
readily  attained  in  its  complete  discrimination  from  all  the 
illusions  which  a  discursive  understanding  constantly  ob- 
trudes upon  us.  It  is  not  by  any  analogies  with  the  dynam- 
ical connections  in  an  understanding,  much  less  any  analysis 
of  such  conclusions  in  judgments,  or  any  abstractions  of 


422  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

conceptions  gain-cid  m  discursive  processes  of  thinking,  tliat 
will  bring  us  to  any  right  and  adequate  apprehension  of 
what  a  pure  wiJJ  is,  and  in  it  the  everlasting  distinction  in 
kind  of  all  person  from  thing.  It  is  not  in  itself  probable 
that  this  knot  in  all  dialectics  and  vexed  problem  in  all 
ethical  metaphysics — so  intricate  that  the  labor  of  centuries 
ha?  bo^jiA  here  exhausted — is  so  easily  to  find  its  solution,  as 
by  »  mere  change  of  the  discursive  connection  from  the 
corj'^itioned  series  in  outward  nature  to  any  conditioned 
successions  in  inward  experience,  that  we  are  henceforth  to 
have  it  free  from  all  entanglement.  If  we  keep  the  process 
within  the  discursions  of  the  understanding,  we  shall  have 
necessity  and  heteronomy ;  never  spontaneity  in  autonomy. 
"We  may  have  a  sensibility  awakened  to  appetite,  but  no 
such  action  fiom  awakened  desire  can  be  pure  will,  any 
more  than  is  the  flowing  stream  when  impelled  by  its  own 
gravity  and  retained  within  the  banks  which  its  own  action 
has  constituted.  The  present  has  always  its  condition  in  a 
higher  period  than  its  own,  and  when  it  is  to  go  forth  in 
action,  that  action  has  already  its  law  imposed  upon  it  by 
another  above  and  out  of  itself,  and  it  can  not  thus  become 
its  own  end,  and  arrest  the  whole  process,  and  throw  itself 
out  of  its  long  and  deep- worn  channel,  and  originate  some 
new  product  of  its  own  for  which  it  shall  be  beholden  solely 
in  autonomy.  Its  perpetual  flow  of  activity  can  in  no  way 
be  discriminated  from  physical  necessity,  by  any  arbitrary 
terms  that  may  be  put  upon  it.  It  is  important  that  we 
here  distinctly  aj^prehend  how  completely  we  must  transcend 
the  whole  province  within  which  work  the  functions  of  the 
understanding,  or  we  can  never  find  the  compass  for  com- 
prehending nature.     For  this  it  is  conditional  that  we  have 


BLEMENTS     OF    COMPREHENSION.  423 

a  will,  ill  which  only  can  there  be  personality ;  and  a  pure 
will  is  in  its  very  conception  self-action  self-directed ;  spon- 
taneity in  autonomy.  If,  in  any  way,  we  put  the  end  which 
is  to  condition  the  activity  out  of  the  absolute  itself,  we 
thereby  bind  the  absolute  in  conditioned  nature. 

This  will  appear  in  the  conclusion  of  the  following  con- 
siderations. Flrst^  let  it  be  considered  that  in  nature  noth- 
ing is  for  itself.  Through  all  her  series,  nature  now  is,  not 
for  what  it  is,  but  for  something  to  be.  It  is  not  itself  its 
own  end,  nor  possessing  any  thing  which  is  its  own  end,  but 
is  ever  an  unfolding  to  attain  something  not  yet  consum- 
mated. No  portion  nor  aggregate  of  nature  can  be  auto- 
nomic, but  is  and  ever  must  be  under  conditions  imposed 
upon  it,  and  thus  is  ever  a  means  to  an  end  not  itself  nor 
its  own.  It  is  ever  more  used  as  a  thing,  and  can  never  be- 
come a  user  of  things  for  its  own  end  as  person. 

But,  secondly^  we  will  rise  above  the  phenomenal  in 
nature,  and  thus  pass  from  the  changes  which  give  coming 
and  departing  events  in  a  perpetual  series  of  conditions,  and 
take  the  space-filling  force  at  the  point  of  its  antagonism  on 
which  all  nature  reposes  ;  and  here  we  may  find  a  sort  of 
autonomy,  but  not  pure,  or  such  as  elevates  from  thing  to 
person.  This  central  antagonism  is  force ;  and  in  its  counter- 
working supplies  force  which  enspheres  itself  in  space,  and 
thus  has  within  itself  its  own  law,  and  in  its  workino:  dif- 
fuses  its  own  law  through  all  the  sphere ;  and  thus  the  uni- 
verse is  in  this  view  under  a  law  self-imposed.  The  space- 
filling force  diffuses  its  own  law  through  all  the  space  filled, 
and  is  ever  thus  working  on  under  the  conditions  of  its  own 
laws  self-perpetuated.  This  is  rnechanical  autonomy.  The 
central  force  develops  itself,  and  carries  its  own  condition? 


424  THE     REASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

throughout  all  the  space  of  its  working.  But  such  sub. 
stance  in  its  causality  becomes  force  in  the  meeting  and 
counteracting  of  the  two  simple  agencies,  and  has  thus  its 
law  put  into  itself  by  agencies  from  above  and  out  of  itself, 
and  it  can  only  transmit  this  inherent  but  imposed  law  from 
condition  to  conditioned,  indefinitely.  It  must  ever  work 
for  some  end  not  yet  reached,  and  can  not  thus  ever  find  its 
OWL  origin  or  its  consummation.  It  can  not  propose  itself 
as  its  own  end,  and  thus  arrest  or  modify  its  agency  for  its 
own  sake ;  but  must  evermore  work  on,  blind  to  all  other 
ends  than  that  of  filling  space  and  evolving  the  conditioned 
from  the  antecedent  condition,  and  be  a  thing  used  by 
others,  and  not  person  to  use  others  or  itself  for  its  own 
behoof  Its  inhering  law  is  yet  imposed  by  a  higher,  and 
for  an  end  yet  to  be,  and  is,  therefore,  truly  heteronomy 
and  not  pure  autonomy. 

And,  thirdly,  there  may  be  conceived  any  other  distin- 
guishable forces  superinduced  upon  this  space-filling  force, 
and  we  may  have  the  forces  of  magnetism  or  electricity 
over-ruling  but  not  extinguishing  the  force  of  gravity ;  or 
chemical  or  crystalline  forces  successively  over-ruling  and 
modifying  all  on  which  each  may  be  superinduced  ;  and  we 
shall  have  each  higher  distinguishable  force  possessing  its 
own  inherent  law,  and  diffusing  this  law  through  all  the 
sphere  of  its  operation,  and  thus  acting  for  another  and 
higher  end  than  that  which  lies  within  any  distinguishable 
force  beneath  it ;  but  this  inherent  law  will  have  been  still 
imposed  upon  it  by  some  simple  agencies  above  it,  and  con- 
ditioning its  action  to  the  attainment  of  ends  "lot  yet 
reached,  and  thus  no  more  an  end  in  itself,  and  auconcmic, 
than  the  primal  antagonistic  force  of  gravity. 


ELEMENTS     OF    COMPREHENSION.  425 

And,  fourthly^  we  may  have  the  distinguishable  force 
of  vegetable  life,  and  which  may  control  all  the  forces  of 
attraction  and  repulsion,  and  chemical  affinities,  and  crystal 
lization,  and  use  them  all  as  subservient  to  its  own  higher 
end  in  assimilation  and  growth ;  yet  still  will  this  vegetative 
autonomy  be  a  law  imposed  from  above  itself,  and  necessi- 
tated to  a  perpetual  working  for  an  end  beyojid  itself,  and 
can  never  attain  to  the  completed  and  final  plant  in  its  con- 
summation for  which  all  preceding  generations  of  plants 
have  germinated  and  died.  The  vital  force  works  on  ever- 
more from  parent  plant  to  produced  germ  in  the  servile  toil 
to  get  an  end  which  is  not  its  own,  and  under  the  compul- 
sion to  a  task  which  Avill  never  be  finished.  Here  is  only  a 
thing  and  not  person  in  pure  autonomy. 

And  this  may  also  be  extended  to  the  superinducing  of 
the  distinguishable  force  of  animal  life  in  its  sentient  capac- 
ity, and  its  internal  organism  for  receiving  and  masticating 
and  digesting  its  food,  and  this  including  all  the  irritability 
of  nerve  and  muscle  which  induces  appetite,  and  locomotion, 
and  selection  of  food,  or  objects  of  appropriate  gratification 
for  any  sense ;  and  we  shall  have  here  a  sentient  autonomy 
which  seems  to  be  a  user  of  many  things  for  its  own  end  in 
its  self-gratification,  and  which,  as  controlled  by  self-enjoy- 
ment may  sometimes  be  called  will  {hrutum  arhitrium)  ;  but 
this  entire  anima  is  still  nature  altogether  and  wholly  shut 
up  within  necessitated  successions,  and  is  thus  utterly  thing 
and  not  person.  The  entire  animal  force  is  conditioned  in 
its  primal  constitution,  and  the  sensory  necessitated  in  its 
internal  pathognomy,  and  must  thus  work  on  as  the  servant 
of  the  animal  organization  and  made  to  do  the  work  which 
the  body  wants  and  when  it  needs  ;  and  it  can  never  finish 


426  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

its  toil,  for  it  is  perpetually  kept  in  successive  animal  organ- 
izations from  generation  to  generation,  which  never  cease 
their  craving.  It  can  never  rise  to  the  dignity  of  making 
itself  its  own  end  and  satisfymg  itself  in  its  own  action,  but 
is  ever  lashed  on  by  a  master  who  imposes  the  task,  and 
reaps  the  products,  and  allows  that  there  be  occasional  grat- 
ifications amid  the  toil  only  as  necessary  to  keep  the  slave 
alive  and  in  a  working  condition.  A  sensory  is  a  thing 
under  necessity,  not  a  person  in  autonomy. 

Nor,  though  we  add  a  light  above  its  own  instinctive 
cravings,  in  which  the  sentient  force  may  work,  shall  we 
thus  give  to  it  personahty.  Make  it  competent  to  general- 
ize its  own  past  experience  and  thereby  come  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  some  gratifications  cost  too  much  in  their  subse- 
quent exactions  or  inflictions,  and  that  there  is  a  rule  of  pru- 
dence which  lies  in  this  generalization  of  consequences  to  be 
heeded,  and  let  this  rule  be  very  accurately  attained  in  its 
own  well-weighed  experience ;  still  every  present  result  is 
already  conditioned  in  some  past  event,  and  whether  a  spe- 
cific appetite  shall  be  strongly  excited  and  control  the  action, 
or  whether  a  generic  desire  of  self-love  as  prompted  by  pru- 
dence shall  carry  the  movement,  this  is  already  settled  in 
some  previous  period  which  has  conditioned  the  sentient 
force  then  to  go  out  in  operation.  The  end  of  action  is  out 
of  itself,  and  imposing  its  law  upon  itself,  and  the  sensory 
with  all  its  prudential  considerations  is  conditioned  force 
and  not  will,  and  acting  under  a  law  imposed  upon  it,  and 
not  in  autonomy. 

Yea,  should  we  conceive  that  there  was  the  capacity  to 
generalize  universal  experience,  and  find  the  rule  of  pruden- 
tial welfare  for  all  sentient  beings ;  the  force  which  should 


ELEMENTS     OF    COMPREHENSION.  427 

fgo  out  in  beneficence  toward  all  would  have  been  already 
^determined  in  that  which  has  conditioned  its  amount  of  sen- 
tient kindness.  That  it  is  prudent  to  itself,  and  congenial 
?to  itself,  to  be  kind  to  others,  is  a  law  imposed  upon  it  by 
Ithat  which  out  of  itself  has  conditioned  its  sentient  force  to 
be  such  and  so  great  as  it  is.  Its  benevolence  would  as 
completely  stand  conditioned  in  its  pathology  as  any  other 
constitutional  appetite.  It  w^ould  be  the  product  of  its 
physiology  as  truly  as  its  hunger,  and  as  much  bound  in  the 
series  of  conditioned  changes  as  its  digestion  or  its  growth. 
It  is  all  nature ;  wholly  a  thing  and  not  a  person. 

By  none  of  the  distinguishable  forces  of  nature,  from 
the  mere  antagonism  of  the  primal  force  to  those  of  the 
most  complicated  in  animal  life  and  sentient  gratification  and 
function  of  judgment  in  generalized  experience,  do  we  find 
any  passage  to  the  supernatural,  nor  any  approach  to  the 
clear  discrimination  of  thing  from  person.  All  is  wholly 
under  law  imposed,  and  in  no  case  itself  an  end  in  itself. 
All  is  a  means  to  an  end ;  that  which  knows  no  indignity  in 
being  used  for  another  ;  a  thing  that  may  have  a  price ;  and 
thus  never  rising  to  the  dignity  of  personality,  which  has 
rights  that  it  may  not  compromit,  and  can  never  consent 
that  it  should  be  bought  and  sold,  nor  that  it  should  ever 
permit  itself  to  be  used  by  another  regardless  of  its  inherent 
autonomy.  Just  as  Httle  is  there  pure  autonomy  in  nature, 
as  there  is  pure  s'pontaneity ;  and  though  one  thing  may 
override  and  control  another  thing,  yet  is  the  highest  still  a 
thing  and  subjected  to  conditions  above  and  out  of  itself. 

We  rise  then,  ^ftfthli/,  to  the  absolute  above  nature,  as  we 
must  for  determining  pure  autonomy  to  personality.  And 
here  an  accurate  and  extensive  discrimination  is  to  be  made, 


128  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

and  which  can  not  be  effected  without  care,  or  we  shall 
possess  this  second  element  of  personality  but  very  con- 
fusedly and  obscurely. 

Let  it  be  considered  that  in  one  aspect  the  spontaneous 
pure  activity  may  be  contemplated  as  simply  artistic.  It  is  to 
go  out  in  the  production  or  creation  of  distinguishable  forces, 
and  thus  in  the  genesis  of  a  nature  of  things.  But  in  such 
going  forth  of  the  pure  activity  there  must  be  some  end  to 
be  attained,  and  some  law  must  be  given  to  the  process  by 
which  the  agency  may  go  out  the  most  directly  and  com- 
pletely to  its  issue.  This  can  not  be  in  the  light  of  any  copy 
or  pattern  already  objectively  existing,  in  which  may  be 
found  the  model  of  what  is  yet  to  be,  for  the  creator  of 
nature  has  not  yet  an  objective  universe  after  which  he  may 
fashion  another.  As  artist,  the  absolute  must  possess  the 
primary  copies  or  patterns  of  what  it  is  possible  may  be,  in 
his  own  subjective  apprehension,  and  the  first  creations  are 
subjective  in  the  absolute  reason  as  universal  genius.  The 
pure  ideals  of  all  possible  entities  lie  as  pure  reason-cogni- 
tions in  the  light  of  the  divine  intelligence,  and  in  these 
mast  be  found  the  rules  after  which  the  creative  agency 
must  go  forth.  That  subjective  pure  archetype  of  what  is 
to  have  objective  being  in  an  actual  space-filling  force,  is  the 
law  by  which  the  pure  spontaneity  is  to  be  controlled.  The 
agency  which  has  this  subjective  archetypal  rule  in  its  own 
light  has  artistic  genius,  and  such  directing  genius  may  be 
termed  wisdom.  When  nature  is  to  be  brought  forth  into 
space  and  time,  the  creator  must  possess  this  in  the  begin- 
ning 01  his  way.  Of  the  whole  work,  this  artistic  wisdom 
personified  may  say,  "  When  He  prepared  the  Heavens  1 
was  there  ;  when  He  set  a  compass  upon  the  face  of  the 


ELEMENTS     OF    COMPREHENSION.  429 

depth;  when  He  established  the  clouds  above;  when  He 
strengthened  the  fountains  of  the  deep  ;  when  He  gave  to 
the  sea  His  decree  that  the  waters  should  not  pass  His  com- 
mandments ;  when  He  appointed  the  foundations  of  the 
earth ;  then  I  was  by  Him  as  one  brought  up  with  Him, 
and  I  was  daily  His  delight,  rejoicing  ever  before  Him." 
And  now  this  artistic  wisdom  and  rule  is,  in  one  acceptation, 
autonomy  ;  it  is  law  and  guide  for  the  creative  agency,  and 
it  is  a  possession  in  the  absolute  itself.  It  is  like  the  archi- 
tect who  has  his  own  rules  in  his  own  intellectual  being. 
He  is  in  an  important  sense  a  self-regulated  agent,  working 
after  his  own  subjective  archetypal  pattern. 

But  this  will  not  suffice  for  the  attainment  of  a  pure 
autonomy.  This  artistic  skill  is  something  to  be  used,  and 
the  personality  using  has  not  yet  been  found.  What  is  to 
determine  that  it  shall  work  ?  and  after  what  pattern  it 
shall  work  ?  and  whether  at  the  expense  of  marring  the 
product  the  workman  shall  not  be  induced  to  violate  the 
artistic  rule  ?  If  there  be  nothing  but  some  want  in  a  sen- 
sory to  be  satisfied,  like  a  mechanic  who  builds  his  own 
dwelling  for  his  own  convenience,  then  will  the  end  be  found 
in  the  gratification  of  that  craving;  and  no  matter  how 
skillful,  how  spacious,  or  how  costly  the  building,  it  has  all 
been  conditioned  to  the  want  he  found  himself  constrained 
to  gratify,  and  for  which  the  agency  must  go  forth,  or  his 
sentient  nature  must  abide  the  unhappy  consequences.  The 
value  of  the  work  and  of  the  workman  is  estimated  solely 
by  the  sentient  gratification  as  end. 

When  material  worlds  in  all  their  distinguishable  forces 
have  been  put  into  space,  and  gravitating,  and  chemical,  and 
crystalline  agencies  have  been  made  to  develop  themselves 


430  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

in  perfect  conformity  to  the  archetypal  rule ;  if,  then,  this 
material  creation  is  to  be  clothed  in  the  verdant  beauty  and 
hixuriance  of  vegetative  life,  and  the  sentient  want  in  the 
maker  and  his  artistic  pattern  be  given,  the  work  will  go  on 
to  this  higher  consummation  and  the  gratification  be  therein 
attained.  And  should,  again,  all  this  beauty  and  bounty 
seem  to  lie  waste,  as  the  stream  in  a  desert,  until  some  sen- 
tient created  beings  be  introduced  to  partake  and  enjoy, 
and  the  great  Architect  find  within  himself  a  want  that 
can  only  be  satisfied  by  making  and  seeing  sentient  beings 
happy ;  then  would  the  artistic  energy  again  be  put  forth  to 
gratify  this  craving  desire  in  his  own  sentient  being,  and 
the  air,  and  waters,  and  earth  o'er  all  its  hills  and  plains  will 
teem  with  living  happy  miUions.  We  might  thus  go  on 
through  indefinitely  higher  grades  of  sentient  desires,  and 
furnish  our  artist  with  higher  patterns  for  created  products, 
and  we  should  keep  an  artistic  skill  perpetually  energizing 
for  the  gratification  of  sentient  wants,  and  which,  if  finally 
terminating  in  some  highest  wants  and  thus  in  some  highest 
happiness,  would  still  be  all  of  nature.  The  want  is  found 
to  be  already  determined  ;  a  conditioned  nature  condition- 
ing all  the  working,  and  all  the  products  of  the  artistic 
workman ;  and  which  is  thus  a  mere  automaton,  not  pure 
autonomy. 

We  may  essay  to  elevate  such  artistic  autonomy  which 
merely  governs  its  actions  by  the  rules  given  and  for  the  end 
of  gratifying  some  sentient  wants,  to  the  place  of  supreme 
author  of  nature,  and  as  if  we  had  found  in  this  a  personal 
Deity  may  call  him  the  divine  Architect ;  and  his  wisdom 
may  be  consummate  in  adapting  means  to  ends,  and  manifold 
in  working ;  but  the  end  of  all  is  already  conditioned  in  his 


15  r.  E  M  E  N  T  8     OF    COMPREHENSION.  431 

necessary  sentient  cravings,  and  as  truly  in  nature  wlien  his 
own  want  can  be  satisfied  only  with  the  happiness  of  other 
sentient  beings  as  when  the  animal  hungers  for  its  daily 
food.  Whoever  possesses  the  sensory  with  its  craving  want 
must  seek  for  this  artistic  skill,  and  use  the  artisan  only  for 
the  gratification  to  which  he  may  minister  ;  and  he  may  thus 
be  good  in  the  acceptation  of  useful  beyond  all  else,  inas- 
much as  he  alone  may  minister  to  the  highest  want.  Such 
an  artist,  to  such  highest  sentient  craving,  would  be  invalu- 
able ;  above  all  price  in  exchange ;  worth  more  than  all  else, 
because  servhig  a  want  the  highest  of  all ;  and,  brought  in 
barter  to  the  market,  would  buy  out  all  that  in  the  universe 
could  be  put  to  sale ;  but  still  this  would  be  only  a  thing 
among  other  things  as  goods  in  the  market,  and  more  valu- 
able only  as  a  more  profitable  instrument  for  the  gratification 
of  a  higher  sentient  end.  lie  is  a  workman  who  can  guide 
his  hand  by  his  own  eye,  and  whose  skill  is  worth  so  much 
by  the  day  or  by  the  job  to  the  employer  who  wants  him. 
He  is  only  a  means  to  be  used  for  an  end,  precisely  as  a  mas- 
ter may  want  the  higher  faculties  of  his  slave  to  accomplish 
such  ends  as  he  can  never  reach  by  the  brute  strength  and 
instinct  of  his  horse,  and  on  this  account  only  the  slave  is 
worth  just  so  much  more  than  the  horse.  When  the  abso- 
lute is  thus  viewed  as  a  means  to  some  end  in  sense,  and 
out  of  and  apart  from  his  own  intrinsic  excellency  as  end, 
he  is  at  once  degraded  ft-om  a  sovereign  to  a  servant ;  from 
a  person  to  a  thing ;  he  exists  for  what  he  makes  ;  his  price 
is  fixed  by  his  products ;  and  he  is  worth  so  much  more 
than  other  workmen  only  as  he  can  make  better  wares.  A 
sentient  nature,  somewhere  secretly  wound  up  to  an  undeni- 
able craving,  is  the  spring   which  sets  the  automaton  in 


432  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

action ;  and  he  works  for,  and  works  out,  the  end  for  which 
he  is  ah'eady  conditioned  in  his  own  constitution.  The  only 
<«,utonomy  that  may  be  affirmed  of  such  an  artist  is,  that  he 
carries  his  rules  in  his  head,  but  the  spring  and  end  of  his 
action  are  wholly  from  and  in  another  who  employs  him. 
We  have  not  thus  attained  to  any  Personality. 

What  we  need  is  not  merely  a  rule  by  which  to  direct 
t?ie  process  in  the  attainment  of  any  artistic  end,  but  we 
must  find  the  legislator  who  may  determine  the  end  itself. 
This  question  is  not  the  ultimate — ^In  what  way  shall  an 
artist  be  furnished  with  rules  for  doing  his  work  to  the 
greatest  perfection  ?  When  that  is  decided  to  be  after  his 
own  pure  subjective  archetypes,  the  ultimate  question  is 
altogether  this — Whence  is  the  ultimate  behest  that  is  to 
determine  the  archetype  and  control  the  pure  spontaneity  in 
its  action  ?  Shall  it  go  out  in  an  antagonism  as  central  force, 
in  which  shall  be  the  genesis  of  an  ensphered  and  revolving 
space-filling  substance?  and  why  thus?  Shall  we  answer, 
it  must  be  thus  in  order  that  a  subsequent  superinducing 
of  distinguishable  forces  upon  this  mei'e  space-filling  sub- 
stance, such  as  magnetic  chemical  and  crystalline  agencies, 
may  all  together  work  on  and  work  out  the  complicated  but 
exact  machinery  of  a  material  universe  through  all  its  com- 
ponent systems  and  worlds  ?  But  why  such  a  material  uni- 
verse in  its  perfect  architecture  ?  Shall  we  again  answer, 
this  is  all  thus  in  order  that  the  beauty  and  bounty  of  a 
vegetative  life  may  be  spread  over  hill  and  valley  ? — but 
why  this  exuberance  of  vegetative  life  ?  In  order,  again 
shall  we  say,  that  glad  sentient  beings  may  people  the  ma- 
terial worlds,  and  find  a  home  amid  all  these  adaptations  in 
the  heavens  above  and  the  earth  beneath  to  their  animal 


3SLEMEXTS     OF     COMPREHENSION.  433 

wants  ?— but  again  the  inquiry  is  just  as  prompt  and  urgent 
— why  this  world  of  sentient  beings  ?  And  should  we  again 
answer :  all  this  is  for  this  great  end,  that  some  sentient 
beings  may  possess  the  exalted  faculty  of  generalizing  their 
own  and  their  fellows'  experience,  and  determining  rules  of 
utility,  and  prudence,  and  economy,  which  must  regulate  the 
action  of  each  for  his  own  highest  welfare,  and  the  interac- 
tion of  all  for  the  highest  happiness  of  the  whole  ;  and  that 
thus  there  may  be  a  social  organization  and  a  political  sover- 
eignty, which  may  administer  a  government  of  penal  sanc- 
tions, coercing  each  to  act  for  the  highest  happiness  of  all  ? 
But  this  social  world,  thus  legislating  for  itself  on  the  grand 
principle  of  its  highest  happiness  in  the  aggregate,  is  still  a 
created  world  ;  a  product  of  an  artist  after  the  rule  of  his 
own  subjective  archetypal  perfection  ; — why  such  a  social 
world? — whence  the  behest  that  set  this  artist  to  his  work, 
and  called  out  this  artistic  wisdom  in  the  service  ?  And  here 
shall  we  answer,  as  if  it  were  to  stop  all  further  questioning, 
that  this  artist  had  a  sensory  the  gratification  of  whose 
highest  desire  was  the  impartation  of  happiness  to  other 
sentient  beings  ;  and  that  thus  his  own  inner  want  put  him 
to  the  work  of  making  other  sentient  beings,  who  in  their 
own  happiness  might  satisfy  him  and  make  him  to  attain  his 
maximum  of  gratification?  But  surely  in  this,  we  have 
nothing  but  nature  in  its  necessitated  conditions.  The  abso 
lute  is  simply  kind  and  good-natured,  and  acts  from  consti- 
tutional cravings,  as  really  as  all  other  sentient  natures 
Tlie  susceptibility  to  happiness  from  benevolent  action  is  in 
this  way  as  truly  an  appetite  in  its  awakened  desire,  and 
necessitated  in  all  its  cravings,  as  any  animal  want.  Ques- 
tions like  thes3  still  necessarily  return — Why  such  suscepti- 

19 


434  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

bility  to  beneficence  ? — What  if  the  want  in  the  sensory 
had  been  of  an  opposite  kind  ?  Must  the  artist  work  merely 
because  there  is  an  inner  want  to  gratify,  with  no  higher  end 
than  the  gratification  of  the  highest  constitutional  craving  ? 
Can  we  find  nothing  beyond  a  want,  w^hich  shall  from  its 
own  behest  demand,  that  this  and  not  its  opposite  shall  be  ? 
Grant  that  the  round  worlds  and  all  their  furniture  are  good 
— but  why  good  ?  Certainly  as  a  means  to  an  end.  Grant 
that  this  end,  the  happiness  of  sentient  beings,  is  good — but 
why  good  ?  Because  it  supplies  the  want  of  the  supreme 
Architect.  And  is  this  the  supreme  good  f  Surely,  if  it  is, 
we  are  altogether  within  nature's  conditions,  call  our  ulti- 
mate attainment  by  what  name  we  may.  We  have  no  ori- 
gin for  our  legislation,  only  as  the  highest  architect  finds 
such  wants  within  himself,  and  the  archetypal  rule  for  grati- 
fying his  wants  in  the  most  effectual  manner  ;  and  precisely 
as  the  ox  goes  to  his  fodder  in  the  shortest  way,  so  he  goes 
to  his  work  in  making  and  peopling  happy  worlds  in  the 
most  direct  manner.  Here  is  no  will ;  no  personality  ;  no 
pure  autonomy.  The  artist  finds  himself  so  constituted  that 
he  must  work  in  this  manner,  or  the  craving  of  his  own 
nature  becomes  intolerable  to  himself,  and  the  gratifying  o.^ 
this  craving  is  the  highest  good. 

We  must  find  that  which  shall  itself  be  the  reason  and 
law  for  benevolence,  and  for  the  sake  of  which  the  artist  shall 
be  put  to  his  beneficent  agency  above  all  considerations  that 
he  finds  his  nature  craving  it.  It  must  be  that  for  whose 
sake  happiness,  even  that  which  as  kind  and  benevolent 
craves  on  all  sides  the  boon  to  bless  others,  itself  should  be. 
Not  sentient  nor.  artistic  autonomy,  but  a  pure  ethic  auto- 
nomy which  knows  that  within  itself  there  is  an  excellencj 


BLEMENTS     OF    COMPREHENSION.  436 

which  obliges  for  the  sake  of  itself.  Tliis  is, never  to  be 
found,  nor  anything  very  analogous  to  it,  in  sentient  nature 
and  a  dictate  from  some  generalized  experience.  It  lies 
within  the  rational  spirit  and  is  law  in  the  heart,  as  an  in^rard 
imperative  in  its  own  right,  and  must  there  be  found.  The 
pregnant  illustration  of  the  Apostle  is  explicit  that  spirit 
only  may  know  what  is  in  spirit :  "  What  man  knoweth  the 
things  of  a  man  save  the  spirit  of  man  which  is  in  him  ? 
even  so  the  things  of  God  knoweth  no  man  but  the  spirit 
of  God.  The  spirit  searcheth  all  things,  yea,  the  deep  things 
of  God."  This  inward  witnessing  capacitates  for  self-legis- 
lating and  self-rewarding.  It  is  inward  consciousness  of  a 
worth  imperative  above  want ;  an  end  in  itself,  and  not 
means  to  another  end ;  a  user  of  things  but  not  itself  to  be 
used  by  anything;  and,  on  account  of  its  intrinsic  excel- 
lency, an  authoritative  determiner  for  its  own  behoof  of  the 
entire  artistic  agency  with  all  its  products,  and  thus  a  con- 
science excusing  or  accusing. 

This  inward  witnessing  of  the  absolute  in  his  own  wor- 
thiness, gives  the  ultimate  estimate  to  nature,  which  needs 
and  can  attain  to  nothing  higher,  than  that  it  should  satisfy 
this  worthiness  as  end ;  and  thereby  in  all  his  works,  he 
fixes,  in  his  own  light,  upon  the  subjective  archetype,  and 
attains  to  the  objective  result,  of  that  which  is  befitting  his 
own  dignity.  It  is,  therefore,  in  no  craving  want  which 
must  be  gratified,  but  from  the  interest  of  an  inner  behest, 
which  should  be  executed  for  his  own  worthiness'  sake,  that 
"  God  has  created  all  things,  and  for  His  pleasure  they  are 
and  were  created." 

It  is  not  sufficient  that  a  product  is  attained  which  is 
good  only  as  a  means  to  some  further  end  ;  nor  yef  that  a 


486  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

personality  is  assumed  who  is  only  artistic  skill  and  wisdom, 
for  this  is  only  means  to  an  end,  and  wholly  a  servant  for  an- 
other's using ;  nor  yet  that  this  servant  have  wants,  even 
that  he  should  make  others  happy  for  the  sake  of  his  own 
happiness,  for  this  keeps  him  in  servitude  still,  inasmuch  as 
the  want  can  only  be  as  a  means  to  the  creation  of  a  happy 
race,  and  the  creation  of  such  a  race  a  means  only  to  satisfy 
such  a  want ;  but  above  all  the  artistic  skill  and  the  impai-ted 
happiness,  we  must  come  into  the  light  and  purity  and 
majesty  ineffable  of  an  uncreated  personality,  before  whose 
presence  all  this  sublimity  of  architecture  and  all  this  exuber- 
ance of  bounty  and  of  gladness  may  be  laid  as  an  offering, 
whose  only  estimate  can  be  that  it  is  worthy  to  be  accepted 
of  him,  and  whose  only  end  can  be  that  it  has  been  created 
for  him.  The  summum  bonum  is  in  his  dignity  and  excel- 
lence, and  in  this  the  great  Eternal  read  the  law  how  created 
nature  should  be,  and  under  such  behest  the  fiat  went  forth, 
and  such  Nature  is. 

It  is  precisely  in  this  light,  and  solely  in  this  presence, 
that  we  wake  to  the  consciousness  of  what  reverence  is,  and 
know  that  we  stand  before  an  awful  Majesty  where  we  must 
bow  and  adore.  We  may  stand  amid  all  the  sublimities  of 
that  wonder-working  power  which  is  fashioning  the  material 
mec?ianism  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  and  we  shall 
admire  and  praise  in  profound  astonishment ;  we  may  look 
upon  all  the  arrangements  which,  in  the  bounty  of  an  ever- 
working  wisdom  and  kindness^  is  diffusing  sentient  joy  and 
gladness  over  millions  of  happy  beings ;  and  we  may  go 
with  such  as  are  competent  to  recognize  their  kind  benefac- 
tor into  His  presence,  and  hear  the  ten  thousand  times  ten 
thousand  voices,  in  different  ways  proclaiming  their  glad- 


BLEMKNTS     OF    COMPREHENSION.  437 

some  gratitude  as  the  sound  of  many  waters,  and  we  shall 
sympathize  in  their  joys  and  praises  with  a  rapturous  delight ; 
but  it  is  only  when  I  see  all  these  standing  in  the  presence 
of  that  absolute  sovereignty  and  pure  moral  personality, 
who  searches  them  all  in  the  light  of  His  own  dignity^  and 
judges  them  by  the  claims  of  His  own  excellency^  and  esti- 
mates their  worth  solely  in  reference  to  His  worthiness  /  and 
when  also  I  see  that  thus  it  behoved  they  should  have  been 
made,  to  be  fit  creatures  of  His  ordering  and  accepting,  and 
that  He  made  them  thus  after  the  behest  of  His  own  un- 
created reason,  and  in  the  light  of  His  ethical  truth  and 
righteousness,  and  governs  them  and  holds  them  ever  subor- 
dinate to  His  own  moral  glory  and  authority ;  it  is  in  such  a 
presence  only,  that  I  reverently  cover  my  face,  and  fall  pros- 
trate, and  cry  from  my  inward  spirit,  "  Holy,  Holy,  Holy, 
Lord  God  Almighty  ,"  "  Heaven  and  earth  are  full  of  Thy 
glory."  "  Thou  art  worthy  O  Lord,  to  receive  glory,  and 
honor,  and  power,  for  Thou  hast  created  all  things,  and  for 
Thy  pleasure  they  are,  and  were  created." 

In  this  is  the  very  essence  of  personality,  that  it  may 
assume  in  its  own  right  the  authority  to  control  its  own 
agency  ;  and  may  lay  claim  to  the  high  prerogative  of  being 
an  end,  and  must  resist  whatsoever  would  degrade  it  to  be 
used  as  a  means  to  any  other  than  its  ovm  end.  In  this  is 
Conscience ;  which  must  forbid  all  intrusion  from  any  possi- 
ble source  within  its  own  domain,  and  in  violation  of  its 
own  end  as  moral  character.  And  in  this  also  is  Will ;  that 
the  act  is  not  nature  necessitated  in  its  conditions,  nor 
alone  pure  spontaneity  in  its  blindness,  but  held  in  control 
by  that  witness  of  what  is  due  to  itself  as  personality ;  and 
thus  possessing  that  inward  spring  in  the  interest  of  its  own 


4.38  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

worthiness,  which  may  resist,  and  shut  out,  and  beat  dotvn, 
all  that  would  seduce  or  force  it  from  allegiance  to  the 
claims  of  its  own  dignity.  Nor  except  in  the  possession  of 
such  intrinsic  excellence  and  dignity  of  being,  and  for  the 
behest  of  which  eveiy  thing  else  must  be  trodden  under 
foot,  can  there  be  an  agency,  however  mighty,  or  skillful,  or 
beneficent,  that  may  bo  permitted  to  take  rank  among  per- 
sonalities ;  but  at  the  highest  must  be  put  among  utilities, 
which  may  command  its  own  price,  but  can  never  claim  a 
reverence  for  its  own  dignity.  We  thus  come  to  the  safe 
conclusion,  that  in  order  to  personality  the  absolute  must 
have,  not  only  the  element  of  pure  spontaneity,  which 
would  give  autocracy,  but  moreover  that  inward  witness  of 
its  own  worth  and  dignity  which  makes  itself  end  and  not 
means,  and  which  gives  pure  Autonomy. 

3.  Pure  spontaneity  in  the  absolute  is  simple  act,  stand- 
ing above  all  the  conditions  of  force,  and  thus  above  all 
necessity  as  nature.  But  mere  spontaneity  is  blind  action, 
aimless  and  lawless,  and  though  essential  to  personality  is 
not  itself  sufficient  for  it.  Pure  autonomy  is  end  above 
nature,  and  in  its  own  intrinsic  excellency  worthy  to  be  end 
itself  and  thus  a  law  to  its  own  action.  It  gives  the  inward 
witness  of  a  right  to  hold  on  to  its  own  worthiness  as  end 
in  every  action ;  and  that  it  behoves  itself  never  to  let  its 
action  become  subservient  to  any  end  that  collides  with  its 
own  dignity  ;  and  thus  affords  the  spring  within  itself,  in 
tlie  interest  of  its  own  excellency,  to  control  and  direct  its 
own  agency.  The  intrinsic  excellency  and  dignity  of  the 
beliig  gives  its  own  law  to  the  action  of  the  being,  and 
hence  it  is  no  longer  pure  spontaneity  merely,  but  sponta- 
neity under  law,  viz.,  the  behest  of  its  own  intrinsic  excel- 


ELEMENTS  OF  COMPEEHENSION.     439 

lency.  This  antithesis  of  pure  spontaneity  and  pure  auto- 
nomy has  its  point  of  indifference — /.  e.,  a  point  in  which 
pure  spontaneity  combines  with  or  comes  under  the  auto- 
nomy, and  is  no  longer  mere  spontaneity  but  spontaneous 
act  governed ;  and  also  in  which  the  pure  autonomy  com 
bines  with  the  spontaneity,  and  is  no  longer  mere  autonomy 
but  self-law  governing.  We  have,  thus,  not  the  two  ele- 
ments in  their  separate  singularity,  as  set  over  the  one 
against  the  other ;  but  in  their  interaction  as  in  synthesis 
one  with  the  other,  so  that  we  may  say  that  neither  is  ex- 
tinct, and  that  neither  in  itself  is,  but  a  tertium  quid  is, 
which  may  be  called  indifferently  a  self-act  governed,  or  a 
self-law  governing.  In  this  synthesis  of  self-action  and  self* 
law  a  will  first  emerges,  and  the  very  essence  of  person  as 
distinct  from  thing  is  in  the  possession  of  will.  In  this  only 
can  the  being  have  possession  of  his  own  action,  and  in  this 
having  of  his  action  comes  his  capacity  to  behave.  Respon- 
sibility to  his  inner  self  calls  for  perjDctual  allegiance  to  the 
authority  of  this  inner  sovereignty.  In  the  absolute  unde- 
rived  I  am,  this  self-agency  and  self-law  is  ever  in  perfect 
synthesis,  undisturbed  by  any  intruding  act  or  colliding  law 
from  any  possible  quarter,  and  thus  ever  a  pure  will  in  the 
tranquillity  of  its  perfect  holiness. 

When,  therefore,  we  have  the  element  of  pure  sponta- 
neity-and  pure  autonomy  in  synthesis,  we  have  a  third  resL- 
son-cognition  in  a  completed  personality,  which  is  pure  lib- 
ei'Cy.  Without  spontaneity  the  absolute  must  be  linked  in 
the  necessitated  successions  of  nature  ;  without  autonomy 
it  must  be  mere  blind  and  lawless  action ;  but  in  the  syn- 
thesis of  these  there  is  a  will,  which  may  make  its  alterna- 
tive to  any  foreign  end,  or  agency,  or  law  that  eac  cbtrule 


440  THE     RE  A  SOX    IX    ITS    IDEA. 

itself,  and  thus  a  liberty.  A  will  in  liberty  is  completed 
personality. 

It  is  important  that  we  come  accurately  to  discriminate 
this  reason-cognition  of  pure  liberty  from  all  the  false  and 
spurious  understanding-cognitions  of  freedom  with  which  it 
is  often  confounded ;  or  rather  above  which  it  has  very  gen- 
erally been  denied  that  it  is  possible  for  the  intellect  to 
reach  ;  and  thus,  by  denying  the  possible  conception  of  pure 
liberty,  the  entire  province  of  the  supernatural  has  really 
been  discarded.  The  Deity,  proposed  to  the  faith  of  many 
an  assumed  Theist,  has  been  in  this  way  a  mere  JSfaturatus  / 
a  deity  bound  utterly  in  the  discursive  connections  of  sub- 
stance and  cause.  In  vain  will  any  assumed  terms,  bor- 
rowed from  the  supernatural,  be  brought  in  to  assist  us ; 
without  a  pure  liberty  we  can  not  rise  above  nature. 

In  the  operations  of  cause  and  effect,  when  the  work  is 
unhindered  by  any  opposition,  it  is  often  said  that  nature  is 
free.  But  all  application  of  the  terra  freedom  to  njiture 
must  be  with  a  different  acceptation  than  that  it  is  pure  lib- 
erty. Nature  can  in  none  of  its  operations  be  found  as  an 
accent  controlling  its  action  for  itself  as  end,  but  is  every 
where  going  out  into  effects  in  which  there  can  be  no  rest- 
ing as  end,  but  which  always  exist  only  as  means  to  a  fur- 
ther end.  Nature  is  wholly  a  means,  and  can  never  cease 
its  action  as  if  it  had  found  its  consummation  in  itself,  and 
had  thereby  satisfied  itself;  but  must  work  on  interminably, 
and  ever  in  the  line  that  a  previous  condition  has  made  al- 
ready to  be  necessity.  It  may  be  free  in  this  acceptation, 
that  its  development  has  nothing  in  advance  to  condition  it, 
and  thus  its  work  goes  on  unhindered.  The  progressus  of 
cause  and  effect  finds  ever  an  open  and  unobstructed  path- 


ELEMENTS     OF    COMPREHENSION.  441 

way.  But  in  all  cases  the  working  of  nature  must  be  con- 
ditioned by  something  from  behind,  and  urged  forward  by 
a  force  a  tergo^  both  that  it  must  be,  and  be  just  what  it  be- 
comes. In  no  one  step  of  nature  is  there  any  alternative ; 
from  what  already  is,  that  step  which  is  now  proximately 
future  must  be  taken,  and  must  be  so  taken  as  has  already 
been  conditioned.  There  is  no  autonomy,  no  will,  no  per- 
sonality, consequently  no  liberty. 

Again,  the  animal  is  often  said  to  choose^  and  that  choice 
is  freedom.  But  the  word  choice  is  very  ambiguous  ;  and 
the  freedom  of  choice  may  be  equivocal,  with  very  different 
meanings  in  different  applications.  The  anirna  is  a  sensi- 
tive nature  superinduced  upon  a  vegeta  ;  and  animal  life  is 
as  truly  nature  as  vegetable  life.  The  force  of  vegetative 
life  is,  also,  superinduced  upon  material  being ;  but  all  the 
distinofuishable  forces  in  material  beinsj  and  that  of  veoreta- 
tion  are  alike  nature.  And  now  of  all,  we  may  say  that 
they  have  their  affinities  or  congenialities,  and  that  they  thus 
make  selections,  and  in  all  cases  this  selecting  may  be  a 
force  Avhich  works  unhindered ;  but  by  whatever  name  we 
call  it,  we  shall  be  able  to  see  that  so  far  as  its  freedom  is 
concerned  it  is  in  all  cases  alike,  and  is  simply  that  of  un- 
hindered causation ;  not  at  all,  that  which  from  the  end  of 
its  own  worthiness  can  bring  in  an  ethical  spring  as  alterna- 
tive to  nature's  conditions,  and  thus  in  liberty.  Chemical 
combinations  select  according  to  conditioning  elective  affini- 
ties ;  crystalline  formations  select  the  homogeneous  from  the 
heterogeneous ;  the  magnet  selects  the  steel-filings  fi-om  saw- 
dust; the  fire  selects  the  stubble  from  the  stones;  thf  plant 
selects  its  own  congenial  nourishment ;  the  ox  selects  ^rass, 
and  the  tiger  selects  flesh ;  but  all  these  varieties  oi  Sfflec- 

19* 


442  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

tioii  are  alike  in  nature,  and  necessitated  by  their  conditions. 
We  may  give  the  name  of  choice  to  the  animal  selection; 
but  it  is  not  because  there  is  any  approach  toward  a  will  in 
liberty,  that  may  supply  an  alternative  to  nature's  condi- 
tions ;  and  if  it  seem  less  appropriate  to  say  the  fire  chooses 
than  that  the  animal  chooses,  it  is  only  as  we  permit  our- 
selves to  be  deluded  with  the  false  play  of  the  understand- 
ing, which  would  assume  to  rise  from  thing  and  approach 
to  person,  by  merely  modifying  discursive  conditions.  The 
''  half-reasoning  elephant,"  and  the  "  architectural  beaver ;" 
the  "  cunning  fox,"  and  the  "  sagacious  dog,"  all  rise  to  the 
exercise  of  a  force  which  concludes  in  a  judgment  according 
to  conditions  in  the  sense,  and  thus  come  quite  within  the 
province  of  an  understanding,  and  we  may  thus  be  less  of- 
fended by  applying  to  them  the  attributes  of  personality 
than  to  inanimate,  insensate  matter ;  but  the  one  is  no  more 
removed  from  the  fixed  chain  of  conditions  in  nature  than 
the  other,  and  the  action  of  the  most  intelligent  animal  is  as 
little  in  liberty,  and  as  truly  necessitated  by  previous  condi- 
tions, as  the  fire  or  the  magnet.  All  is  controlled  by  the 
sentient  nature,  which  in  every  act  has  its  condition  in  some 
already  conditioned  events,  and  which  no  amount  of  sagac- 
ity can  lift  out  of  the  bondage  of  necessity.  That  its  action 
in  a  change  of  perceived  circumstances  changes,  is  no  more 
an  index  of  choice  in  liberty,  than  that  the  current  of  the 
stream  changes  its  direction  when  it  meets  the  obstacle 
thrust  in  the  way  '-^  its  progress.  The  conditions  at  the 
time  are  the  events  which  have  come  out  fi'om  a  previous 
period,  and  are  themselves  the  conditioning  facts  of  what  is 
next  to  arise ;  and  amid  such  conditions,  neither  the  magnet, 
the  stream,  the  vegetable,  nor  the  animal,  can  bring  in  the 


ELEMENTS     OF    COMPREHENSION.  4  43 

iulfi'est  of  a  dignity  in  its  own  personality,  as  spring  to 
carry  itself  against,  or  to  throw  itself  out  of  the  necessitated 
{successions  of  nature.  All  its  freedom  is  this,  an  unhin- 
dered progression  in  following  down  the  current  of  nature's 
conditions.  The  choices  of  animal  nature  are  component 
links  in  this  iron  chain  as  truly  as  the  effects  of  gravity.  It 
is  controlled  by  appetite  and  thus  by  nature,  not  by  its  own 
behest  in  reason,  and  thus  in  hberty.  Hence  the  animal  is 
ever  thing,  and  never  person  ;  it  has  a  price,  but  not  a  dig- 
nity. 

Man,  also,  by  so  much  as  he  is  sentient,  is  animal  only. 
All  the  cravings  of  his  sensory  are  constitutional  and  thus 
conditioned,  and  the  action  in  an  appetite  and  in  its  gratifi- 
cation is  wholly  of  nature.  As  animal  alone,  man  has  no 
will  in  liberty,  and  thus  no  more  a  personality  that  the  brute 
which  perisheth.  Except  as  man  has  a  higher  endowment 
than  a  sentient  nature,  and  in  which  he  may  find  an  inner 
witness  of  an  intrinsic  excellency  and  dignity,  that  forbid  all 
prostitution  of  itself  to  be  used  as  means  to  gain  any  end  of 
the  sensory,  but  which  is  imperative  that  all  possible  gratifi- 
cation of  sentient  nature  shall  be  wholly  controlled  and  even 
thrust  aside  and  beat  down  for  the  higher  end  of  its  own 
w^orthiness,  and  which  may  thus  take  hold  upon  an  interest 
in  its  own  excellency  of  being,  and  resist  and  subjugate  all 
the  clamorous  appetites  of  sense,  and  hold  them  in  perpet- 
ual servitude  to  its  own  ethical  end,  he  neither  has  nor  can 
have  any  personality  nor  responsibility,  inasmuch  as  other- 
wise he  can  possess  no  will  in  liberty.  He  may  bow  his  per- 
sonality to  the  ends  of  animal  gratification,  and  in  his  depravity 
make  the  ethical  to  serve  the  sensual ;  but  it  is  because  of 
this  inner  witness  of  intrinsic  excellency  and   dignity  de- 


444  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

graded  and  debased,  that  he  has  remorse  as  a  gnawmg 
worm. 

His  personality  in  his  will  is  thus  enslaved  to  sense  and 
subjected  to  nature,  but  it  can  never  lay  aside  its  high  pre- 
rogatives and  become  nature.  In  its  lowest  degradation 
and  debasement  in  guilt,  the  inner  withness  of  its  own  intrin- 
sic rights  disregarded  and  sacrificed  will  give  a  perpetual 
self-condemnation,  and  urge  the  behest  to  reassert  and  regain 
its  rightful  supremacy  and  authority.  Man  can  only  thus 
sell  his  liberty  to  the  sense  against  the  constant  claims  of  his 
own  personality,  and  stand  every  moment  self-condemned 
in  his  self-degradation.  Were  he  only  animal  he  would 
ruminate  in  quiet  enjoyment  upon  the  past  croppings  of 
sense ;  it  is  the  recoil  of  the  accusing  spirit  back  upon  itself 
in  conscious  guilt  and  debasement,  that  gives  the  sting  to 
all  man's  reflections  upon  his  sensuality.  Deprive  him  of 
this  higher  endowment  and  you  leave  him  wholly  to  nature, 
and  no  matter  how  extensive  his  force  of  understanding  in 
generalizing  his  own  and  his  fellow's  experience,  and  attain- 
ing the  rules  of  prudence  and  benevolence ;  he  can  make 
neither  to  be  an  end,  except  as  he  find  the  want  already  in 
the  sensory,  and  that  want  as  conditioned  in  nature  will 
condition  the  act,  and  link  that  also  in  the  necessities  of 
nature. 

But,  in  determining  to  the  absolute  his  own  right  to  be 
himself  his  end  of  action,  in  the  dignity  of  his  own  excel- 
lency, and  thus  to  control  his  pure  activity  by  his  own 
worthiness  as  ethical  law,  and  that  whatever  may  be  the 
ends  proposed  out  of  himself  he  may  fix  upon  them  or 
utterly  exclude  them  according  to  this  behest  in  the  inner 
witnessing  of  the  rights  of  his  own  being,  we  have  that 


ELEMKNTB     OF     COMPREHENSION.  445 

self-agency  and  self-law  which  is  spring  for  alternative  action 
to  any  ends  possible  to  be  presented,  and  thus  is  ever  pure 
will  in  the  sovereignty  of  its  perfect  law  of  liberty.  He  is 
a  personaUty  above  nature,  who  may  steady  Himself  against 
the  obtrusion  of  all  ends  in  a  real  nature  of  things  or  all 
archetypes  in  a  possible  nature  of  things,  and  stand  utterly 
unconditioned  by  an  actual  or  a  possible  series  of  condition 
and  conditioned,  and  answer  only  to  the  supreme,  all-con- 
trolling ethical  claims  of  his  inner  being,  viz.,  that  he 
magnify  his  own  worthiness  as  his  highest  good,  and  the 
absolute  end  and  right.  This  is  quite  other  than  the  free- 
dom of  unhindered  causality ;  or,  the  choices  of  sentient 
nature  that  go  out  in  gratification  for  conditioned  wants ; 
even  the  acts  of  rational  Personality  in  a  will,  Avhich,  though 
not  lawless,  has  only  an  ethical  law  in  liberty. 

That  may  be  said  to  be  the  good  icill^  in  the  acceptation 
of  the  holy  will^  which  is  pure  spontaneous  act  under  the 
ethical  law  of  its  own  dignity  as  person  ;  which  knows  no 
colliding  end  with  the  ethical  law ;  which  preserves  the  per- 
fect tranquillity  of  finding  every  end  in  his  own  interest 
perfectly  conformed  to  the  ethical  end  of  his  own  worthi- 
ness ;  and  thus  never  subjected  to  the  conflict  of  a  law  in 
himself  with  a  law  out  of  himself  That  would  be  the 
good  will  in  the  sense  of  the  virtuous  will^  which  has  the 
colliding  of  sensual  end  with  ethical  end,  but  which  in  the 
conflict  ever  valorously  beats  back  and  subordinates  the  sen- 
sual end.  Such  may  ever  have  the  peace  of  a  strong  and 
watchful  government,  but  never  the  tranquillity  of  perfect 
love.     This  is  self-regnant,  the  other  self-complacent. 

The  Divine  will  must  ever  be  the  purely  holy  will  in  its 
tranquillity.     The  Absolute,  as  pure  Uncreated  Reason,  can 


446  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

have  no  ends  appealing  to  any  interest  in  collision  with  that 
which  is  the  highest  ethical  law  of  Reason ;  ever  to  act 
according  to  his  own  rationality,  or,  as  the  same  things 
worthy  of  himself.  It  is  thus  in  the  same  sense  "  impossible 
that  God  should  lie"  as  it  is  that  "  He  can  not  deny  Himself." 
He  "  ever  abideth  faithful,'  inasmuch  as  within  the  person- 
ality of  the  absolute  reason,  it  Avould  be  absurd  that  there 
should  be  an  interest  that  should  collide  with  the  highest 
rationality.  All  possible  ends  must,  to  the  Absolute  Reason, 
be  held  in  subordination  to  its  own  end,  and  this  is  the  con- 
trol of  pure  spontaneity  by  a  pure  autonomy,  and  which,  as 
furnishing  an  alternative  to  all  possible  ends  as  interest,  is 
pure  Liberty.  These  three.  Spontaneity,  Autonomy,  and 
Liberty,  are  all  the  elements  which  determine  Personality ; 
and,  as  in  the  Ideal  of  the  Absolute,  determined  in  His  per- 
sonality, we  are  to  comprehend  universal  nature,  so  in  these, 
we  have  the  primitive  Elements  of  an  operation  of  Com- 
prehension. 


SECTION    III. 

THE   A   PRIORI   COMPREHENSION    OP   NATURE   IN  THE   PUBB 
PERSONALITY    OF   THE    ABSOLUTE. 

Personality  involves  pure  spontaneity  under  a  pur 
autonomy,  and  this  is  the  sole  condition  of  pure  liberty.  It 
is  a  capacity  of  action  in  will,  and  possesses  within  itself  the 
spring  of  an  alternative  to  any  possible  external  end  which  may 
be  proposed  to  it.  This  is  pure  self-determination  ;  not  as 
arbitrament  with  no  end,  for  this  would  be  the  absurdity  of 


A   PRIORI    COMPREHENSION    OP    NATURE.       447 

a  deterinination  undermined ;  but  an  arbitrament  from  the 
etbical  end  of  its  own  excellency,  and  to  the  ethical  end  of 
its  own  worthiness.  The  supreme  intrinsic  excellency  of 
the  absolute,  as  person,  is  itself  the  reason  and  the  ethical 
beliest  that  he  should  not  be  a  means  to  any  end  out  of 
Himself.  It  behoves  that  he  be  the  user  of  all  possible 
things,  and  that  he  be  used  by  nothing  possible.  His  own 
agency  should  be  directed  by  those  rights  which  are  insepar- 
able from  his  own  excellency. 

All  right  as  ethical  exists  in  personality,  and  is  foundor 
tion  for  the  i3eremptory  demand  that  nature  as  servant  shall 
find  its  end  in  the  person,  and  that  no  possible  end  in  nature 
shall  be  permitted  by  the  person  to  hold  himself  in  bondage 
to  it.  Finite  personalities  must  in  this  respect  be  in  the 
likeness  of  the  absolute  person,  and  each  be  an  end  in  him- 
self which  he  may  never  subordinate  to  any  end  in  nature 
without  violating  the  rights  of  personality  and  making  him- 
self guilty  of  self-degradation.  It  would  thus  involve  an 
ethical  absurdity  that  the  absolute  person,  for  whose  use  is 
all  possible  nature,  might  use  the  finite  personality  as  he 
may  use  nature.  Nature  is  not  end  itself,  and  can  have  no 
rights,  and  can  therefore  never  rise  above  the  instrumental ; 
personality,  even  finite,  has  rights  which  it  would  be  an 
un worthiness  in  the  absolute  to  disregard  or  invade.  The 
ultimate  end  and  supreme  good  of  the  Divine  dignity  will 
give  an  ethical  behest  that  all  of  material  and  sentient 
nature  be  used  as  thing^  and  that  all  of  moral  being  be 
treated  as  person.  A  sovereignty  supreme  and  universal, 
legislating  and  governing  in  the  right  and  for  the  end  of  his 
own  dignity  with  a  purely  holy  will,  must  control  the  mate- 
rial and  moi-al  worlds,  by  widely  different  laws ;  condition- 


446  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

lug  all  of  the  former  in  the  necessitated  connection^j  of 
nature,  and  holding  all  of  the  latter  to  the  responsibilities 
of  "  the  witness  within"  as  the  perfect  law  of  liberty. 
Nature  must  glorify  its  maker  as  thing  to  be  used  for  an 
end  not  its  own ;  finite  personality,  as  offspring  of  the  Deity, 
must  glorify  God  in  the  joyful  service  which  it  is  its  own 
ethical  end  lovingly  to  render. 

But  such  conception  of  personality,  which  may  originate 
action  from  a  spring  within  itself  and  control  a  consumma- 
tion that  shall  be  wholly  for  itself,  is  exclusively  a  reason-con- 
ception. To  the  understanding,  all  that  is  personality,  or  a 
will  in  liberty,  must  be  wholly  without  signification.  Its 
functions  can  only  connect  discursively  and  never  contemplate 
existence  comprehensively ;  and  that  there  should  be  action 
from  a  being  who  may  originate  and  consummate  within  him- 
self, must  to  it  be  utterly  unintelligible.  But  if  we  will  keep 
our  philosophy  here  wholly  within  the  province  of  the  super- 
natural, and  not  permit  the  illusions  of  discursive  connections 
in  an  understanding  to  obtrude  themselves  upon  us,  we  may 
surely  and  soundly  attain  to  an  d  priori  demonstration.  In 
order  to  this  it  is  now  quite  necessary  to  guard  against  any 
deceptive  ambiguities  in  the  terms  which  it  may  be  conven- 
ient we  should  here  use.  We  have  transcended  the  whole 
region  of  phenomena  as  the  qualities  and  events  constructed 
in  place  and  period,  and  our  use  of  the  word  attribute,  as 
applied  to  the  elements  of  personality,  must  not  be  consid- 
ered at  all  the  phenomenal  quality/  which  inheres  in  a  space- 
filling substance,  and  may  be  given  in  sensation  and  con- 
structed in  a  definite  quantity. 

And  so,  moreover,  have  we  transcended  all  the  region  ol 
the  notional,  which  as  substances  and  causes  connect  nature 


A    PEIOEI    COMPREHENSION     OP    NATURE.    449 

in  a  universe ;  and  when  we  now  ui\e  the  t(irnis  i7iflue?ice^ 
power,  essence,  or  source  as  referable  to  person,  we  must  not 
at  all  consider  these  as  the  physical  forces,  which  in  nature 
may  be  made  to  push  or  pull  and  thereby  modify  and  dis- 
place existing  things.  Even  when  it  is  convenient  to  borrow 
words  from  the  understanding,  and  thus  bring  up  the  terms 
from  the  natural  to  the  supernatural,  and  call  the  absolute  a 
^irst  Cause,  and  speak  of  the  behest  of  his  own  dignity  as 
causative  determiner  of  his  acts,  or  of  the  will  as  causality 
of  the  personal  agency,  we  are  by  no  means  to  allow  our- 
selves to  come  under  the  delusion,  as  if  with  the  terms  there 
had  come  up  the  things  of  nature,  and  that  such  supernatural 
causation  had  any  connection  with  nature's  causes  in  their 
necessitated  conditions.  If  the  words  are  sometimes  bor- 
rowed, the  meanings  must  never  be  confounded.  The  attri- 
butes and  causalities  of  the  supernatural  both  transcend  and 
comprehend  the  qualities  and  causalities  of  the  natural.  All 
the  substantiality  and  causality  of  nature  originate  in,  and 
are  used  by,  the  absolute  will  in  liberty.  Thus  carefully  dis- 
criminating our  reason-conceptions  of  personality  from  all 
understanding-conceptions  of  things  in  nature,  we  now  pro- 
ceed to  the  consideration  of  a  possible  comprehension  of 
universal  nature  in  the  absolute  personality. 

As  incorporeal  and  uncreated  reason  and  will,  the  abso- 
lute has  his  own  spring  of  action  within  himself,  and  in  this 
a  power  in  liberty  which  is  wholly  above  and  separate  from 
all  force  in  nature,  and  which  may  be  creative  of  force.  He 
may  originate  simple  acts  which,  in  their  OAvn  simplicity, 
have  no  counter-agency  and  can  therefore  never  be  brought 
under  any  of  the  conditions  of  space  and  time  and  nature. 

From  his  own  inner  capacity  of  self-determination  he 


460  THE    EEASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

may  designedly  put  simple  acts  in  counteraction  and  at  their 
point  of  counter-agency  a  force  begins  which  takes  a  position 
in  space  and  occupies  an  instant  in  time.  There  is  a  begin- 
ning in  something  where  nothing  was ;  and  this  has  position, 
instant,  and  permanence.  The  perpetuated  energizing  in 
counteraction  is  creation  in  progress,  inasmuch  as  force  accu- 
mulates about  that  point  of  antagonism,  and  enspheres  itself 
upon  it  as  a  center  ;  and  a  space  is  thereby  filled,  which  may 
be  conjoined  in  a  definite  figure ;  a  time  is  thus  occupied 
which  may  be  conjoined  in  a  definite  period ;  and  an  impene- 
trable substance  is  made,  which  may  give  content  in  a  sensi- 
bility, and  be  conjoined  in  a  definite  pjienomenon.  Above 
that  point  of  counter-agency  all  is  simple  activity — unphe- 
nomenal  and  unsubstantial,  and  having  all  its  essentiality  in 
the  power  of  the  supernatural  as  will  in  liberty ;  in,  and 
below  that  point  all  is  force — phenomenal  in  the  perception 
of  the  sense,  and  substantial  and  causal  in  the  judgment  of 
the  understanding,  and  existing  as  physical  nature  in  its 
necessitated  conditions.  In  this  substance,  place  in  its  own 
one  whole  of  space  is  determinable  ;  and  in  this  also,  as  source 
for  successive  events,  period  in  one  whole  of  time  may  be 
determined ;  and  thus  an  existence  is  given  in  a  space  and 
a  time,  which  can  not  come  and  depart  as  in  a  mirror  or  a 
dream.  The  energizing  of  the  absolute  will  may  fill  so 
much  of  this  one  whole  of  space,  and  do  this  in  so  much  of 
this  one  whole  of  time,  as  shall  be  directed  by  the  archetypa 
rule  of  his  artistic  wisdom  ;  and  may  give  the  modifications 
of  distinguishable  forces,  also,  in  accordance  with  such  ride ; 
and  all  for  the  end  of  his  own  worthiness :  and  thus,  at  the 
fiat  of  the  absolute  will,  nature  is,  with  all  her  substances, 
causes  and  reciprocal  forces,  and  with  all  the  tribes  of  vege- 


1    PRIORI    C  OMPRE  H  E  NSI  O'N     OF    NATURE.    451 

table,  animal,  and  human  beings.  God  need  only  to  will  it, 
"  and  for  His  pleasm-e  they  are."  Nature  henceforth  goes 
on  in  her  development  according  to  the  law  of  physical 
forces,  and  is  perpetually  a  natura  naturans  /  but,  at  the 
great  central  point  of  all  counter-working,  and  in  all  the 
points  of  a  superposition  of  distinguishable  forces,  a  condi- 
tioning of  nature  is  determined  by  the  absolute  in  his  own 
liberty,  and  thus  all  nature  is  still  natura  naturata.  Physi- 
cal causes  perpetually  work  on,  and  all  is  thus  caiisa  causans  ; 
but  all  these  causes  are  conditioned  in  their  sources  by  the 
self-determining  will  of  the  absolute,  and  are  thus  causa 
causata.  The  power  which  imposes  conditions  upon  nature, 
and  gives  causality  to  causes,  is  wholly  above  all  the  condi- 
tions and  causes  of  nature,  and  with  nothhig  of  the  neces- 
sities of  physical  force,  has  no  other  controller  than  the 
supreme  artistic  wisdom  under  the  behest  of  the  absolute  in 
liberty.  And  still  further,  while  this  space-filling  force  takes 
its  place  in  space,  and  is  impenetrable,  inasmuch  as  it  can 
admit  the  substance  of  no  other  space-filling  force  into  its 
locality  except  in  its  own  displacement,  so  also  is  all  the  reflex 
action  of  this  engendered  and  ensphered  force  sustained  upon 
the  central  point  of  the  primal  antagonism.  Action  and 
reaction,  attraction  and  repulsion,  centripetal  and  centrifugal 
agency  fill  the  whole  sphere  of  universal  nature;  but  no 
working  of  physical  forces  can  press  back  of  the  central 
point  in  which  they  have  their  genesis,  and  invade  the  world 
of  the  supernatural.  The  Deity  needs  but  to  will  the  coun- 
teraction in  its  pei-petuated  force,  and  universal  nature  finds  its 
equilibrium  in  the  repulsion  from  the  center  and  the  reflex 
pressui-e  to  the  center,  and  holds  itself  suspended  on  its  own 
conditioned  forces,  without  the  possibility  of  any  weai  iness 


462  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

or  exhaustipn  to  its  maker.  It  is  wholly  the  product  of  the 
Divine  will,  and  wholly  the  act  of  the  absolute ;  and  while 
utterly  dependent  for  its  being  upon  the  Divine  will,  can  yet 
never  react  upon  or  in  any  way  condition  the  being  and 
agency  of  the  omnipotent  producer.  It  is  thereby  a  verita- 
ble creation  distinct  from  its  creator,  of  which  it  may  intelli- 
gently be  affirmed,  that  the  creator  is  conditional  for  it,  but 
it  in  no  wise  conditions  the  creator.  Within  it  are  contained 
all  the  series  of  conditioned  and  thus  of  necessitated  succes- 
sions ;  and  from  the  rudimental  germs  in  their  primal  crea- 
tion as  distinguishable  forces,  is  already  determined  the  fact 
and  the  order  of  development.  The  conditions  for  enspher- 
ing worlds ;  for  centripetal  and  centrifugal  forces,  and  the 
ratios  of  their  action  both  as  to  quantity  and  distance  from 
the  center ;  their  revolutions  upon  their  axes,  and  their 
orbits  about  their  primaries  ;  and  the  relative  inclination  of 
the  planes  of  these  orbits,  and  of  the  axes  of  the  spheres  to 
them,  and  of  the  proportions  of  the  axes  of  each  to  their 
equatorial  diameters  ;  and,  in  short,  the  whole  formal  arrange- 
ments of  the  universe  are  given  in  the  very  points  where 
the  primordial  forces  have  their  genesis  ;  as  is  also  the  whole 
science  of  nature  in  its  original  bi-polar,  chemical,  crystalline, 
vegetable  and  animal  forces.  An  a  priori  philosophy  may 
long  be  detained  in  this  broad  field,  before  it  shall  be  com- 
petent to  detect  all  these  forces  in  their  distinguishable  rudi- 
ments, but  their  laws,  and  thus  all  their  possible  conditioned 
changes,  have  already  been  settled  in  their  creation,  and  may 
be  determined. 

All  this  context  of  conditions,  constituting  universal 
nature,  is  dependent,  while  the  absolute  maker  is  wholly 
independent ;  it  is  his  creature  and  subjected  to  his  use« 


k    PKIORI    COMPEEHENSION    OF    NATURE.    453 

He  is  its  Lord,  and  has  the  right  of  sovereignty  over  it  to 
make  it  subservient  to  the  end  of  His  own  dignity.  It  is, 
only  because  He  is ;  and  the  ethical  behest  of  his  own  ex- 
cellency has  summoned  it  to  fill  its  place,  and  endure  its 
Ume,  and  subserve  His  purpose.  God  made  it,  and  is  wholly 
independent  of  it ;  and  thus  both  Atheism  and  Pantheism 
are  utterly  excluded,  in  this  reason-cognition  of  the  absolute 
as  person.  This  determination  of  an  origin  to  nature,  in  its 
own  space  and  time,  is  a  complete  comprehension  of  nature 
on  the  side  of  nature's  beginning. 

And  now,  that  on  the  other  side  we  may  comprehend 
nature  in  its  consummation^  we  have  the  same  compass  of 
an  all-embracing  reason  in  the  absolute  as  personality,  and 
who  as  having  the  final  end  of  all  His  agency  in  Himself, 
must  govern  and  direct  all  of  nature  to  the  end  for  which  it 
has  been  created  by  Him.  The  Supreme  Architect  must 
have  the  archetypes  of  all  possible  nature  in  His  own  sub* 
jective  apprehension.  There  is  no  inward  craving  want  of 
a  sensory,  which  may  subject  the  will  to  the  bondage  of  a 
blind  necessity  in  going  out  to  gratify  it,  nor  put  the  will  in 
a  perpetually  militant  attitude  in  resisting  it ;  but  there  is 
the  one  high  and  controlling  behest  of  His  own  excellency, 
that  every  possible  end  shall  be  determined  in  subserviency 
to  the  right  of  His  own  worthiness.  It  is  the  highest  ra- 
tionality, that  the  absolute  reason  be  Himself  the  end  of  all 
ends.  This  inward  ethical  spring  to  all  action  finds  no  pos- 
sible collision  in  the  Divine  bosom,  and  nothing  hinders  His 
will  in  the  sweet  and  loving  execution  of  an  eternally  steady 
and  tranquil  disposing  of  itself  to  the  ultimate  end  of  His 
own  glory.  In  this  is  pure  and  perfect  holiness ;  and  it  will 
control  ^he  artistic  selection  and  execution,  frgm  amid  aU 


454  THE    SEASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

possible  archetypal  creations,  to  that  which  will  be  most 
worthy  of  His  own  making  and  accepting.  There  is  a 
measuring  of  things  by  things,  but  no  thing  can  be  an  ab- 
solute good.  The  measure  of  all  things  is  in  the  personal 
ity  of  reason  ,  and  the  absolute  reason  is  the  perfection  and 
glory  of  all  possible  persons ;  and  whatever  magnifies  His 
dignity  will  include  the  exaltation  of  finite  personality.  The 
Bupreme  good  for  all  moral  personality  is  this  unbroken 
reign  of  the  Divine  Holiness.  And  this  grand  end  in  all  the 
works  of  God  must  secure  an  optimism  in  nature,  as  the 
product  of  His  creative  power.  His  will  must  be  on  that 
archetype  which  in  the  end  of  His  reason  is  the  most  reason- 
able ;  in  the  end  of  supreme  loveliness,  is  the  most  lovely ; 
in  the  end  of  an  excellency  above  all  price,  is  the  most  ex- 
cellent ;  and  in  the  presence  of  a  dignity  where  all  finite 
worth  fades,  is  the  most  worthy. 

In  this  autocracy  and  autonomy  of  the  Deity,  we  have 
the  ultimate  and  complete  measure  of  His  creation.  In  the 
tranquil  self-possession  of  a  perfectly  holy  will  lies  his  eter- 
nal purpose ;  and  the  steady  agency  moves  on  in  artistic 
wisdom,  to  the  fulfillment  of  His  settled  counsel.  Material 
worlds  and  systems,  with  their  distinguishable  forces  as  sub- 
stances in  their  causality,  are  made  and  arranged  in  their 
order  and  perfection  of  mechanical  adaptation,  action  and 
movement ;  and  the  rich  abundance  and  beauty,  which  \Qgr 
etative  life  throws  over  the  surface  of  the  green  earth,  are 
brought  out ;  and  the  changing  seasons  with  the  changing 
years  roll  on,  and  day  and  night,  and  "  sweet  return  of 
morn  and  eve"  are  in  perpetual  alternations.  But  not  in 
this  perfection  of  arranged  forces,  though  worthy  of  the 
power  and  manifold  wisdom  of  the  absolute  maker,  sliall  \r« 


i    PRIORI    COMPREHENSION     OF    NATURE.    455 

find  the  ultimate  end  for  which  the  Almighty  works.  He  is 
more  than  artistic  perfection,  and  may  not  permit  His  action 
to  be  exhausted  in  the  satisfaction  of  the  artist.  He  is 
architect  only  in  subserviency  to  a  higher  end  in  a  higher 
excellency,  and  material  worlds  with  all  their  furniture  exist 
only  as  instruments  to  be  used  for  a  higher  behest.  Sen- 
tient tribes  of  living  beings  people  these  wide  fields,  and 
gather  the  good  harvest  of  nature,  and  live  in  gladness  and 
joy  on  this  bounty,  and  thus  in  addition  to  the  wider  action 
of  artistic  skill  in  the  adaptations  of  material,  vegetable  and 
animal  nature,  we  have  the  much  higher  product  of  animal 
enjoyment  and  happiness.  But  God  is  good  m  the  accepta- 
tion of  bountiful  and  beneficent,  only  that  it  may  subserve  a 
much  higher  intrinsic  excellency  in  His  being,  than  that  He 
should  be  benevolent.  Human  beings,  to  whom  may  be 
given  an  intelhgent  apprehension  of  that  which  is  rule  for 
their  highest  happiness,  and  an  immortality,  that  they  might 
endlessly  obey  and  enjoy,  would  so  far  be  only  of  nature ; 
and  their  rule  of  life,  a  generalization  of  experience  as  they 
found  it  to  be ;  and  their  obligation  to  obey,  not  any  thing 
of  ethical  worth  and  dignity,  but  solely  as  slaves  to  a  nature 
than  can  pay  in  pleasure  or  in  pain.  Their  ultimate  master 
would  be  the  power  of  the  leviathan  who  may  caress  or  tor- 
ture ;  and  their  only  virtue  would  be  that  they  work  on 
with  the  eye  on  the  greatest  wages  before  them,  and  the 
consciousness  of  the  lash  behind.  But  God  is  author  of  the 
nature  which  rewards  and  punishes,  for  a  much  higher  end 
in  Himself  than  that  so  He  must  do  if  He  would  satisfy  a 
want  He  finds  in  Himself  to  be  made  happy  by  making 
others  happy.  This  would  leave  Him  the  slave  to  a  neces- 
sity as  tvrannical  as  that  of  the  animal,  and  stretch   the 


466  THE    KEASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

iron  chain  of  nature  completely  around  Him.  There  is  her© 
nowhere  a  will  in  liberty  but  the  mere  brute  arhitrium  of 
nature's  strongest  craving.  The  D^eity  should  not  thus  ex- 
haust his  action  in  giving  laws  to  nature,  from  which  the 
rules  of  prudence  in  attaining  the  greatest  happiness  on  the 
whole  may  be  derived,  and  this  only  to  sit  by  and  enjoy 
Himself  the  happiness,  which  this  on-going  of  nature  may 
work  out  for  Him  in  the  perceived  happiness  of  His  crea- 
tures. 

It  is  no  possible  craving  want  to  be  gratified  that  can  be 
the  ultimate  end  and  law  of  the  absolute  power,  and  which 
must  at  once  condition  the  absolute,  and  exclude  from  the 
prerogative  of  personality  with  a  will  in  liberty ;  but  it  is 
an  ethical  interest  in  reason  alone,  which  in  its  own  right 
demands  when  and  how  and  what  the  happiness  shall  be, 
and  what  artistic  arrangements  shall  be  given  to  nature,  con- 
ditioning the  happiness  it  shall  work  out.  God  will  keep 
His  benevolence  subservient  to  His  holiness,  and  make  it  to 
find  its  end  in  His  own  worthiness,  and  impart  happiness  in 
no  way  that  shall  be  derogatory  to  His  essential  excellency 
and  dignity.  And  this  discloses  at  once  the  crowning  end 
of  the  whole  physical  creation,  with  all  its  sentient  happi- 
ness, viz.,  that  it  may  subserve  a  personal  and  moral  crea- 
tion, in  its  advancement  of  virtue  and  holiness  to  such  a  de- 
gree of  dignity  and  moral  worth,  as  the  ethical  behest  of 
His  own  person  will  admit  that  the  absolute  Author  should 
secure. 

The  absolute  fully  comprehends  Himself,  and  fathoms  all 
the  depths  of  His  own  being,  and  has  other  and  far  higher 
capabilities  than  any  material  or  sentient  organizations  can 
exhaust.     To  create  and  superintend  the  development  of 


A    PRIORI    COMPREHENSION    OF    NATURE.    45? 

only  such  forces  could  not  reach  the  ultimate  end  of  Hia 
own  worthiness,  inasmuch  as  it  would  be  a  termination  in 
the  less  while  He  held  within  Himself  the  archetypes  of 
the  greater,  and  involve  the  absurdity  that  the  absolute  rea- 
son should  satisfy  itself  with  something  other  than  reason. 
Its  behest  must  be  the  maximum  of  archetype,  and  the  con* 
summation  of  working.  A  moral  world — a  system  made 
up  of  varied  orders  and  ranks  of  persons  in  liberty — will  be 
brought  into  existence ;  and  thus,  the  congeniality  of  accord- 
ant being,  in  reciprocal  communion  and  affection,  will  be 
disclosed.  There  may  then  be  an  ethical  society,  governed 
by  the  spring  which  the  "  inward  witness  "  of  what  is  due 
to  each  in  the  worthiness  of  His  own  personality  shall  give; 
and  the  whole  rewarding  itself,  in  the  blessedness  which 
accrues  to  each  in  the  holiness  and  blessedness  of  all,  and 
God  and  His  moral  creation  come  together  in  a  reciprocity 
of  holy  love.  Somewhere,  this  moral  world  will  be  brought 
in  connection  with  the  conditions  of  the  physical  world ; 
and  all  the  adaptations  of  material,  vegetable,  and  sentient 
being  be  found  to  have  their  end  in  the  interests  of  the 
moral  system.  A  race  of  beings,  compounded  of  the  mate- 
rial, sentient  and  moral,  may  be  created  ;  and  thus  that 
which  is  personal  becomes  incarnate,  and  the  free  is  sub- 
jected to  the  colliding  action  of  the  necessitated,  and  per- 
sonal liberty  is  put  upon  its  probation  in  conflict  with  the 
conditioned  force  of  nature,  and  through  this  one  point  of 
connection  with  nature,  a  modifying  influence  is  consequently 
carried  over  all  the  sphere  of  moral  being.  God  will  use 
the  natural  for  the  ends  of  the  moral ;  and  he  will  govern 
the  moral,  by  ethical  laws  and   influences  which  originate 

in  the  behest  of  his  own  intrinsic  excellency  and  digni'iy. 

20 


458  THE    REASON     IN    ITS     IDEA. 

Wben  the  ends  of  nature  are  kept  wholly  subordinate  to 
the  ethical  end  of  personality,  then  are  the  physical  and  the 
moral  worlds  in  harmony,  and  the  entire  creation  of  God  is 
good,  and  "  the  morning  stars  sing  together." 

Sin  may  enter  by  any  prostitution  of  an  ethical  claim  to 
a  physical  want,  or  by  any  assumption  of  the  finite  reason 
above  its  proportionate  excellency,  and  become  a  soul-sin, 
but  this  must  be  somewhere  below  the  Creator,  and  from 
the  creature-personality ;  inasmuch  as  no  colliding  want  can 
reach  to  the  absolute,  and  sin  enter  through  him ;  and  no 
moral  responsibility  to  an  "  inner  witness"  can  be  found  in 
physical  nature,  and  sin  inhere  in  it.  Through  any  finite 
personality  sin  may  come  in  ;  and  that  it  should  come  in 
somewhere,  in  any  possible  modification  of  a  moral  system 
in  its  necessary  subjection  to  a  conditioned  nature,  may  be 
a  certainty  to  the  omniscience  of  the  absolute,  except  in 
such  interposition  for  prevention  as  would  compromit  the 
higher  ultimate  end  in  the  behest  of  his  own  dignity.  God 
may  not  lay  aside  his  own  dignity,  and  act  unworthy  of  his 
own  excellency,  to  save  a  moral  creation  from  ruin.  He 
may  not  leave  the  throne  of  sovereignty,  ethically  his  in  his 
own  intrinsic  excellency,  and  permit  himself  to  be  used  as  a 
servant  and  instrument  for  some  other  end  that  then  takes 
the  throne  ;  even  though  it  be  the  holiness  and  blessedness 
of  a  moral  universe.  What  he  may  do,  he  will  do  to  ex- 
clude sin ;  both  in  the  use  of  sentient  nature  as  a  penalty, 
and  when  sin  has  entered,  in  its  use  as  a  tabernacle  for  di- 
vinity to  "  set  forth  a  propitiation,  to  declare  his  righteous- 
ness ;"  but  not  for  the  prevention  of  nor  the  redemption 
from  sin  will  God  ^  deny  himself."  He  will  so  create  nat- 
ural and  moral  worlds,  and  so  arrange  them  in  their  connec- 


A    PRIORI    COMPREHENSION    OF    NATURE.    459 

tions,  and  so  act  upon  them  in  all  his  agency,  as  shall  com- 
pletely meet  the  end  of  his  own  worthiness ;  and  give  that 
archetype  as  the  pattern  for  artistic  wisdom,  which,  of  all 
possible  ways  for  creating  energy  and  governmental  influ- 
ence to  go  forth,  shall  be  most  reasonable,  most  lovely,  most 
righteous  and  holy,  when  tried  in  his  presence,  and  by  the 
ethical  rights  and  claims  of  his  OAvn  personality.  This  must 
comprehend  every  event  in  nature,  every  act  in  the  moral 
world,  and  conclude  the  entire  creation  in  that  final  consum- 
mation of  the  whole  plan  and  work,  when  it  shall  be  worthy 
to  be  presented  to,  and  accepted  by  the  God  and  Judge  of 
all.  Then  shall  come  the  full  and  eternal  chorus,  "and 
every  creature  which  is  in  heaven,  and  on  the  earth,  and 
under  the  earth,  and  such  as  are  in  the  sea,  and  all  that  are 
in  them,  shall  be  heard  saying.  Blessing  and  honor  and 
glory  and  power  be  unto  him  that  sitteth  upon  the  throne, 
and  unto  the  Lamb  for  ever  and  ever." 

Here,  therefore,  in  the  complete  ideal  of  the  absolute  in 
personality,  it  is  possible  that  we  may  attain  to  a  perfect 
and  entire  comprehension  of  nature,  and  indeed  of  all  crea- 
tion physical  and  moral.  A  nature  of  things  may  originate 
in  the  Deity  as  personal  creator  in  liberty,  and  stand  out 
distinct  from,  and  wholly  excluded  from  all  conditioning 
reaction  upon,  the  Deity ;  w^hQe  itself  is  dependent  upon, 
and  subjected  to,  his  supreme  will.  We  no  longer  seek 
a  resting  place  through  the  discursions  of  the  under- 
gtanding,  where  we  must  ever  be  hastening  the  foot- 
step from  the  conditioned  to  a  higher  condition ;  but  we 
have  found  a  conception  for  a  safe  and  permanent  source  of 
all  things,  in  the  self-sufficiency  of  an  absolute,  personal 
Deity.     Nor  do  we  run   on  the  interminable  line  of  final 


460  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    IDEA. 

causes,  and  find  one  thing  to  end  only  in  that  which  must 
yet  run  on  to  some  further  end ;  but  we  have  ?.  summum 
honum^  and  ultimate  end,  in  the  intrinsic  worth  and  rever- 
ence due  to  the  absolute  personal  God,  before  whom  all  his 
creation  should  stand  uncovered.  The  chain  of  nature's 
conditioned  events  may  lengthen  down  the  depths  of  the 
void  below,  but  the  hand  out  of  which  it  comes  forbids  all 
anxiety  lest  unsupported  it  should  fall,  and  nature  be  extin- 
guished ;  or,  lest  it  should  go  on  downward  with  no  aim 
but  to  lose  itself  in  unfathomed  emptiness.  ISTature  has  a 
beginning ;  a  guide ;  a  consummation ;  and  in  this,  nature  is 
completely  comprehended;  nor  is  it  possible  that  in  any 
other  manner,  it  should  find  its  comprehen^sion. 

The  complete  Idea  of  the  Reason,  as  faculty  for  an  ope- 
ration of  Comprehension,  is  thus  given  in  the  compass  of 
the  Absolute  in  personality.  Nature  may  he  comprehended 
in  a  pure  Spontaneity^  Autonomy^  and  Liberty  :  or,  which 
is  the  same  thing — Reason  may  comprehend  Nature  in  the 
compass  of  an  Absolute  Person, 


CHAPTER    II 


THE  REASON  IN  ITS  OBJECTIVE  LAW. 


FINITE  AND  ABSOLUTE  PERSONALITY. 


CoiiPREHENSiON  determines  things  in  their  origin  anil 
their  consummation,  and  which  we  have  already  seen  is 
only  to  be  effected  through  a  free  personality.  Sense  can 
merely  conjoin  in  definite  place  and  period,  and  thereby 
give  in  consciousness  the  arising  and  departing  phenome- 
non; but  can  not  tell  whence  it  cometh,  nor  whither  it 
goeth.  An  understanding  can  merely  connect  the  phenom- 
ena in  their  substances  and  causes,  and  thereby  give  to  the 
flowing  events  in  nature  a  perduring  substratum  of  exist- 
ence which  ever  is,  and  only  changes  its  modes  of  being  and 
manifestation ;  but  can  not  say,  what  is  origin  for  this  sub- 
stance in  its  causality,  nor  to  what  consummation  these 
changes  in  nature  are  tending.  It  may  go  up  and  down  the 
interminable  series  of  changing  events,  but  can  by  no  means 
overleap  the  linked  conditions  and  determine  from  whence 
the  whole  have  come,  nor  whither  the  whole  will  find  their 
end  ;  and  in  such  perpetual  running  from  link  to  link  there 
can  never  be  effected  a  comprehension  of  the  entire  chain 


462  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    LAW. 

The  reason  is  the  only  faculty  for  comprehending^  and  this 
by  encompassing  both  origin  and  end  in  a  personal  author. 

We  have  determined  the  a  priori  possibility  of  such 
comprehending  operation,  in  the  compass  of  a  personality  in 
liberty,  and  in  this  have  attained  to  the  complete  idea  of  an 
all-embracing  reason.  But  thus  far,  the  all-comprehending 
reason  is  only  a  void  conception.  We  have  not  yet  found 
such  a  comprehending  faculty  in  actual  being  and  operation. 
So  it  may  be ;  so,  if  at  all,  it  must  be ;  but  that  so  it  ^5,  we 
have  yet  to  find.  Our  remaining  task  is  this,  that  we  take 
any  facts  which  may  present  themselves  in  the  whole  field 
of  a  comprehending  agency  and  find  whether  they  come  at 
once  within  the  actual  colligation  of  this  law  of  free  person- 
ality. It  is  incumbent,  that  from  these  various  facts,  we 
should  show  that  a  comprehension  of  things  reaches  so  far 
as,  and  no  farther  than,  an  applied  law  of  personality  in  lib- 
erty reaches.  This  will  give  the  accordance  of  Idea  and 
Law  which  has  all  along  been  our  criterion  of  true  science. 
This  will  perfect  our  entire  Psychological  System ;  but  as  in 
the  sense  and  the  understanding  we  gave  an  outhne  of  the 
Ontological  Demonstration  of  their  objects,  we  will  here  do 
the  same  for  the  objects  of  the  reason — The  Soul,  God,  and 
Immortality. 

We  shall  find  an  occasion  for  distinguishing  these  facts 
of  a  comprehending  agency  and  putting  them  into  two  sep- 
arate classes,  accordingly  as  they  belong  to  a  world  of  a 
fiiiite  or  of  an  absolute  personality. 

We  shall  find  that  a  finite  personality  is  the  compaie  by 
which  we  comprehend  one  class  of  these  facts,  and  the  abso- 
lute personality  the  compass  by  which  we  comprehend  the 
other :  and  to  mark  the  distinction  between  these  it  is  im- 


FINITE    AND    ABSOLUTE    PERSONALITY.    463 

portant  that  we  familiarize  ourselves  to  the  following  con- 
siderations. 

"VVe  may  speak  of  a  sensoi'ium,  reached  by  any  content 
as  quality  given  in  an  organ  of  sense,  and  thus  excited, 
becoming  capacity  for  sensation ;  and  all  this  will  lie  wholly 
within  the  fixed  conditions  of  nature ;  and  the  phenomena 
which  it  will  give  occasion  for  constructing  in  consciousness, 
and  thus  all  perceptions,  will  stand  wholly  within  necessitated 
conditions.  TVe  may  also  speak  of  a  sensory  as  more  deeply 
subjective,  reached  by  the  perceived  objects  and  thus  excited 
becoming  capacity  for  appetite  in  any  way  of  a  constitu- 
tional craving  or  want,  and  all  this  will  be  within  the  linked 
conditions  of  nature ;  and  the  desires,  as  well  as  percep- 
tions, will  be  necessitated.  The  entire  sensibility,  call  it 
sensorium  or  sensory,  capacity  for  perceiving  or  wanting,  is 
wholly  within  nature. 

The  perceptions  of  objects  may  vary,  and  remembered 
consequences  of  former  gratifications  may  modify  desires, 
and  changed  circumstances  may  demand  a  changed  course 
of  action  to  secure  the  object  wanted,  and  all  this  will  induce 
a  judgment  relative  to  the  ends  of  a  sentient  nature  accord- 
ing to  what  is  actually  given  in  the  sense,  and  which  must 
thus  change  as  the  perceived  circumstances  and  wants  have 
changed ;  but  all  this  will  still  be  controlled  wholly  by  the 
conditions  of  nature,  and  an  animal  understanding  will  be 
mere  instinctive  subtlety  or  brute  sagacity,  and  held  com- 
pletely in  servitude  to  the  conditions  imposed  upon  it.  Even 
should  we  admit  a  generalizing  of  all  experience,  and  there" 
by  a  rule  of  highest  gratification  in  the  aggregate,  and  in 
this  the  dictate  of  prudence  ;  the  whole  would  still  be  within 
the  bondage  of  necessity,  and  the  perception  and  the  appe- 


464  THE     REASON    IN    ITS    LAW 

tite  and  the  judgment  all  conditioned  in  nature,  and  no  other 
prerogative  would  be  gained  than  a  mere  expansion  of  an 
animal  understanding  necessitated  in  all  its  judgments,  its 
wants,  and  its  gratifications.  Its  aggregate  want  in  its  pru- 
dential judgment  would  be  conditioned  and  would  itself  con- 
dition the  act  to  gratify,  as  truly  as  in  the  craving  of  parti- 
cular appetites.  In  no  way  can  the  merely  sentient  force 
rise  above  nature. 

Man  has  within  him,  all  the  distinguishable  forces  of 
material  being ;  and,  as  material,  is  conditioned  in  nature  as 
truly  as  the  clods  on  which  he  treads.  He  has  also  animal 
life ;  yet  this,  in  the  furthest  extension  of  sentient  wants 
and  sentient  gratifications,  and  in  the  highest  generalizations 
of  consequences  in  an  attained  experience,  gives  to  him  no 
prerogatives  above  his  fellows  of  the  stall  or  of  the  stye ; 
but  he,  equally  with  all  animal  nature,  is  wrapped  about  by 
the  iron  chain  of  necessitated  successions.  The  degree  in 
nothing  but  a  consideration  of  a  longer  or  a  shorter  chain  ; 
the  hind  of  connections,  as  animal,  in  man  and  in  brute  is 
the  same.  We  have  in  nature,  throughout,  a  superinducing 
of  distinguishable  forces  one  upon  another,  the  last  using 
the  former  for  its  own  ends,  yet  itself  still  held  in  all  the 
conditions  of  the  former  but  as  it  overrules  without  extin- 
guishing them ;  and  in  this,  different  grades  of  space-filling 
substances  are  given,  while  all  are  ensphered  about  a  com- 
mon center,  the  whole  of  which  is  the  physical  universe^ 
bound  every  where  in  conditions  which  make  it  a  fixed 
nature  of  things  through  its  perpetual  development. 

And,  again,  in  contradiction  to  the  physical  we  have  the 
ethical  world.  The  intrinsic  excellency  of  the  absolute  is 
the  central  law  of  the  moral  universe.    The  spirit  of  Go(? 


I 


FINITE    AND    ABSOLUTE    PERSONALITY.    465 

kiioweth  perfectly  what  is  in  God,  and  this  inner  witness  of 
his  own  excellency  and  dignity  is  the  consciousness  of  his 
own  right,  and  what  alone  is  worthy  of  him,  and  is  thus 
nmer  law  as  a  divine  conscience  in  the  autonomy  of  his  own 
Oeing.  In  this  is  also  an  ethical  spring  for  the  direction  of 
his  own  agency,  and  in  this  self-determining  capacity  lies  the 
Divine  will.  And  as,  moreover,  there  is  in  this  will,  self- 
determined  in  the  right  of  his  own  excellency,  an  alternative 
to  any  other  end  which  can  be  presented,  than  his  own  dig- 
nity, so  there  is  here  a  will  in  liberty.  This  determines  per- 
sonality to  the  Deity ;  and  as  ever  self-determined  in  self- 
complacency,  with  no  colliding  ends  to  disturb  the  perpetual 
tranquillity,  we  have  in  this,  properly,  the  Holy  and  the 

EVER  BLESSED  GOD. 

Man,  as  spiritual,  is  the  offspring  of  the  Deity,  and 
although  only  finite  rationality  is  yet  in  the  very  likeness  of 
the  absolute  reason.  To  every  finite  spirit  there  is  the  inward 
witness  of  its  own  intrinsic  dignity  and  excellence,  and  thus 
a  knowledge  of  what  is  worthy  of  itself  in  its  own  righteous 
claim,  and  thereby  a  conscience  as  law  within  written  on  the 
heart.  In  this  is  spring  for  an  alternative  to  any  colliding 
end  til  at  may  come  before  the  man,  and  thus  a  will  in  liberty 
is  his  endowment.  The  yielding  of  the  good  will  to  any 
collidino-  end  whatever  is  a  deofradhioj  servitude,  and  makes 
it  to  be  a  depraved  will ;  and  the  valorous  beating  back  and 
holding  in  subjection  every  want  of  nature  to  the  worthi- 
ness of  the  spiritual,  becomes  the  virtuous  will.  The  will 
of  the  holy  God  and  of  the  virtuous  man  are  directed  by 
the  same  principle,  the  iirtrinsic  excellency  and  dignity  of 
the  spiritual ;  and  the  inner  witness  differs  only  in  this,  that 
in  God  it  is  an  absolute  reason  and  in  man  it  is  a  finite  ration- 

20* 


466  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    LAW. 

ality,  which  in  its  excellence  gives  energy  to  conscience. 
The  will  of  God,  in  whatever  way  Taade  known  to  man, 
will  thus  come  to  his  conscience  as  the  right  of  the  absolute, 
and  which  it  will  be  imperative  that  he  should  obey  on  the 
ground  that  the  finite  excellency  can  not  otherwise  maintain 
its  own  worthiness,  but  must  really  debase  itself  by  any 
rebellion  against  the  absolute,  and  bring  the  conviction  of 
degradation  and  guilt  to  its  own  conscience  ;  and  where  there 
is  this  disobedience  of  the  finite,  it  will  behoove  that  the 
absolute  inflict  penalty  on  the  ground  that  thus  he  should 
vindicate  his  own  dignity,  and  sustain  a  worthiness  that 
must  be  reverenced. 

The  intrinsic  excellence  of  rational  spirit  is  every  where 
end  and  law,  and  the  inward  witness  of  what  is  its  right  is 
the  ULTIMATE  EIGHT  ;  and  every  where  holds  all  personality 
responsible  each  to  his  own  conscience.  The  absolute  right 
includes  the  finite,  and  in  this  harmonizes  all  possible  ethical 
claim  through  all  possible  persons,  and  makes  of  all  possible 
grades  of  spiritual  being  an  ensphered  moral  universe.  Any 
part  acts  unworthy  of  itself  and  in  violation  of  the  right  of 
the  whole,  when  any  colliding  want  carries  the  will  in  servi- 
tude to  it;  and  the  vindictive  penalty  for  such  violation 
must  be  made  to  meet  every  sinner,  through  his  own  con- 
science. In  this,  we  have  an  ensphered  moral  world,  held 
together  by  the  law  of  liberty,  as  the  ensphered  physical 
world  is  held  together  by  the  law  of  conditioning  forces 
and  these  two  spheres  meeting  and  intersecting  in  man.  So 
far  as  man  is  only  material  or  animal  he  is  wholly  natui'e,  so 
far  as  he  is  purely  spiritual  he  is  wholly  supernatural ;  but 
as  the  two  spheres  of  nature  and  of  rational  spirit  come 
together  in  man,  and  thus  make  him  to  be  neither  mere  ani 


I 


riiflTE    AND    ABSOLUTE    PERSONALITY.    467 

mal  nor  pure  spirit,  we  have  that  complex  existence  which 
we  call  a  human  hehig.  So  much  of  the  natural  as  is  thus 
put  in  combination  with  the  rational,  constitutes  that  which, 
as  entire,  we  properly  term  the  world  of  humanity.  The  law 
of  the  sentient  in  this  world  of  humanity  is  wholly  of  nature, 
and  may  be  called  appetitive  ;  the  law  of  the  spiritual  is 
wholly  of  reason,  and  may  be  known  as  imperative. 

And  now,  our  object  is  to  gather  these  facts  where  there 
is  any  comprehension  of  things  in  their  origin  and  end,  and 
see  whether  they  may  all  be  held  in  colligation  by  this  hypo- 
thesis of  a  free  personality.  In  nature  we  shall  not  expect 
to  find  such  facts  of  a  comprehending  agency  on  this  hypo- 
thesis, inasmuch  as  in  nature  tliere  can  be  no  free  personality. 
Within  the  field  of  humanity,  inasmuch  as  we  now  assume 
that  it  is  not  all  nature,  we  may  expect  to  find  some  facts  to 
be  comprehended  in  the  free  though  finite  personality  with 
which  humanity  is  endowed.  But  in  the  broad  field  encom- 
passed by  Divinity,  we  must  anticipate  the  most  satisfactory 
instances  of  an  all-embracing  reason,  as  practicable  and 
actual  only  through  a  manifest  application  of  the  law  of  an 
absolute  personality  in  liberty.  If  we  find  the  comprehen- 
sion to  be  only  as  we  apply  the  free  personality,  and  always 
when  we  do  so,  and  precisely  to  the  degree  in  which  we  are 
able  to  do  so,  it  will  prove  itself  to  be  the  actual  law,  hold- 
ing all  facts  of  a  comprehending  reason  in  colligation  by 
virtue  of  its  own  universality.  We  shall  thus  need  two 
Sections  for  the  classification  of  facts  under  the  finite^  and 
under  the  absolute  personality  in  liberty. 


468  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    LAW. 


SECTION    I. 

THE   FACTS    OF   A    COMPREHENDING   REASON   WHICH    COME 
WITHIN  THE    COMPASS    OF    A   FINITE   PERSONALITY. 

Humanity  in  its  sentient  nature  comprehends  nothing, 
and  only  as  it  rises  within  the  sphere  of  the  rational,  and 
stands  out  in  the  prerogatives  of  its  free  personality,  can  it 
possess  the  conditioning  law  for  all  comprehension.  The 
perceptions  and  wants  and  judgments  are  wholly  enchained 
in  the  prison-house  of  nature,  and  all  intelligence  circum- 
scribed and  concluded  with  no  comprehensive  capacity ;  and 
only  as  man  awakes  in  the  higher  consciousness  of  rational- 
ity and  freedom  does  he  know,  or  even  dream  of  or  care  for, 
any  existence  beyond  his  dungeon,  or  have  any  impulse  to 
inquire  what  he  or  his  prison  of  nature  is.  But  we  have 
assumed  for  man  the  prerogative  of  a  spiritual  being,  and  in 
virtue  of  a  free  personality  habitant  in  humanity,  we  are 
now  to  induce  a  variety  of  facts  in  this  field,  which  will 
evince  for  themselves  the  actual  law^  of  freedom  as  the  only 
hypothesis  by  which  they  may  be  brought  in  colligation 
These  facts  of  a  comprehending  capacity  will,  indeed,  in- 
clude all  that  distinguishes  man  from  brute,  inasmuch  as  it 
is  only  in  that  which  is  elementary  in  his  personality  that 
any  discrimination  of  an  ordei*  of  being  can  be  made.  In 
virtue  of  this  only  is.  it  that  he  can  rise  above  nature  and 
comprehend  his  own  operations  and  products,  while  the 
brute  is  all  nature  and  can  comprehend  nothing. 

But,  for  the  clear  apprehension  of  the  degrees  of  free- 
dom, and  the  peculiar  springs  which  may  give  an  alterr  ative 


FACTS    IN    FINITE    PERSONALITY.  469 

to  sentient  wants,  in  the  finite  personality  \vbich  inhabits 
every  human  breast,  it  is  important  that  we  attain  the  pecu- 
harities  of  the  world  of  humanity,  as  lying  solely  in  that 
region  which  is  formed  by  tlie  mutual  intersection  of  the 
two  spheres  of  the  physical  and  the  ethical  systems.  This 
intersection,  and  consequent  mutual  interaction  and  compo- 
sition of  the  two,  modifies  each ;  and  thus,  neither  the  phys- 
ical nor  the  ethical  is  as  it  would  be  in  its  separate  existence. 
The  sentient  force  does  not  act  alone,  but  has  the  influence 
upon  it  of  the  rational  power ;  the  rational  spirit  is  not  in- 
corporeal, but  is  subjected  to  the  colliding  desires  of  the 
sense.  There  may  thus  be  modifications,  and  mediate  de- 
grees of  freedom,  between  the  utterly  conditioned  in  the 
merely  sentient  nature,  and  the  unrufiled  calm  in  a  purely 
holy  ethical  agency.  How  this  may  be,  it  is  not  difiicult  to 
trace;  and  it  is  directly  in  the  way  of  preparation  for  the 
attaining  and  classifying  of  our  contemplated  facts  of  a  com- 
prehending agency,  that  we  show  the  discriminating  points 
in  the  different  springs,  which  in  its  rational  interest  may 
give  to  humanity  a  freedom  from  the  bondage  of  its  sen- 
tient wants. 

The  craving  in  the  wants  of  sentient  life,  solely  consid- 
ered, we  have  termed  appetite;  and  under  this  we  include 
all  the  constitutional  sentient  cravings  though  sometimes 
called  by  softer  names,  as  sympathies,  affections,  etc.  When 
the  force  of  excited  appetite  is  toward  gratification,  it  is 
known  as  desire  /  when  it  is  turned  away  from  its  object  in 
disgust  it  is  known  as  aversion.  But  without  further  dis- 
crimination, it  may  be  sufficient  to  let  the  whole  of  condi- 
tioned sentient  nature  be  known  as  appetitive.  On  the 
other  hand  in  the.  ethical  world,  the  claims  which  an  innei 


470  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    LAW. 

witness  of  the  intrinsic  dignity  of  rational  personality  po?« 
sesses  in  its  own  right,  we  have  termed  behests  ;  and  as  in- 
clusive of  all  pure  personality,  whether  of  the  absolute  or 
the  finite,  it  may  be  sufficient  here  that  we  speak  of  all 
purely  ethical  being  as  in  its  own  right  imperative. 

In  the  sentient  nature,  every  thing  works  for  wages.  It 
is  conditioned  in  the  happiness  it  wants,  and  in  the  way  to 
attain  it ;  and  it  must  work,  and  work  in  such  a  manner,  or 
starve.  Its  highest  law  is  gratification  of  want,  called  love 
of  happiness,  and  is  wholly  of  physical  necessity.  On  the 
other  hand  in  the  rational  personality,  all  ^cts  in  compla- 
cency. It  is  pleased  with  the  behest,  for  it  is  its  own,  and 
in  the  right  of  its  own  excellency  ;  it  is  tranquil  in  its  action, 
for  no  colliding  end  disturbs  it.  Its  highest  law  of  action  is 
the  inward  witness  of  its  own  dignity,  called  love  of  right, 
and  is  wholly  liberty  in  its  own  lawfulness.  The  sentient 
works  as  means  to  an  end  imposed  upon  it,  and  is  worth  so 
much  as  nature  pays  for  it  in  gratification  ;  the  personal  acts 
in  its  own  right  and  blesses  itself  in  its  own  worthiness,  and 
has  no  price  in  barter  but  a  dignity  to  which  it  were  the 
highest  afii"ont  to  oflfer  any  thing  in  exchange.  The  sentient 
satiates  itself  and  rests  in  a  surfeit ;  the  rational  maintains 
its  dignity,  and  has  the  tranquil  bliss  of  unwearied  holiness. 

When,  now,  we  have  the  two  spheres  in  mutual  inter- 
section, and  spirituality  given  incarnate  as  in  humanity,  to 
the  full  extent  of  this  intersection  must  we  have  reciprocal 
modification,  and  by  so  much  must  the  experience  of  human- 
ity diifer  from  mere  sense  or  from  pure  reason.  It  will  not 
be  all  animal  and  thus  wholly  the  brute,  nor  will  it  be  all 
spiritual  and  thus  wholly  the  divine.  It  will  have  both  a 
price  and  a  dignity ;  a  law  of  happiness  and  a  law  of  right 


PACTS    IX    FINITE    PERSOXALITY.  471 

eousness ;  an  appetitive  nature  and  an  iinperativ^e  personal-' 
ity.  And  here,  between  the  solely  appetitive  in  the  animal 
and  tlie  purely  imperative  in  the  spiritual,  is  the  region  of 
humanity  compounded  of  both.  Such  a  complex  existence 
may  well  give  rise  to  that  in  an  experience  which  is  neither 
a  craving  want  nor  an  ethical  behest ;  but  which  may  be 
spring  for  action  alternative  to  any  thing  of  the  sentient, 
and  thus  give  a  modification  of  freedom,  though  it  be  not  in 
the  claim  of  a  moral  right.  And  such  a  spring  may  vary  in 
successive  modifications,  according  as  the  rational  makes 
use  of  the  lower  or  the  higher  elements  in  the  sentient  for 
its  own  ends.  To  just  such  an  extent  may  humanity  be- 
come creative,  and  make  and  enjoy  its  own  products  in  its 
own  sphere,  and  thus  so  far  be  comprehending  agency  be- 
cause so  far  it  may  originate  and  consummate  as  author  and 
designer.  In  such  creations  tliere  will  not  be  work  as  in  the 
service  of  the  sense,  nor  will  there  be  the  holy  tranquillity 
as  in  tlie  pure  ethical  activity  of  the  spirit ;  but  in  propor- 
tion as  it  is  spirit  using  sense  for  the  ends  of  its  own  ration- 
ality, and  thus  controlling  and  not  controlled,  there  may  be 
a  serene  interest  that  rises  as  the  product  rises  in  the  ends 
of  the  reason,  and  carrying  humanity  from  the  very  confines 
of  the  anhnal  in  savage  life  upwards  in  culture  to  the  bor- 
der of  the  ethical,  which  controls  every  faculty  in  duty  and 
for  the  dignity  of  the  rational  personality.  This  impulse  in 
humanity  which  is  neither  that  of  craving  appetite  in  the 
sense  nor  of  sovereign  behest  in  the  spirit,  but  a  serene  in- 
terest in  some  end  in  the  reason,  has  been  termed  t\\&  play- 
impulse  ;  inasmuch  as  on  one  side  there  is  no  servility,  and 
on  the  other  there  is  no  reverence.  The  reason  uses  its  con- 
nection with  the  sense,  not  for  any  end  ol  the  sense ;  not  in 


472  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    LAW. 

the  ethical  behest  of  its  own  dignity  ;  but  simply  in  the  in- 
terest of  its  own  cheerfulness.  It  plays  with  nature,  not  in 
frivolity  as  a  sense-play ;  but  with  the  elevating  and  invigor- 
ating exercise  of  a  sportive  rationality.  It  is  this  impulse, 
which  takes  us  from  sensuahty,  and  raises  us  through  the 
beauty  of  art,  and  the  truth  of  science,  up  to  the  duties  of 
morality  and  the  sanctities  of  religion.  We  play  with 
beauty,  and  cheer  ourselves  with  the  pursuit  of  truth,  and 
thus  lift  ourselves  above  the  slavery  of  appetite,  and  are 
prepared  for  the  ethical  claims  upon  our  personality,  either 
in  duty  or  in  adoration.  The  free  personality  is  present  in 
art  and  science,  as  truly  as  in  morality. 

Having  thus  indicated  the  region  in  humanity  from 
which  we  are  to  gather  the  facts  which  have  their  compre- 
hension in  its  free  personality,  we  shall  now,  at  once,  enter 
on  the  work  of  induction,  and  having  reference  only  to  such 
as  come  within  the  compass  of  a  finite  personality,  we  will 
make  it  sufficiently  broad  to  show  that  we  have  the  opera- 
tions of  a  comprehending  reason  in  humanity,  and  that  it  is 
every  where,  and  only,  through  the  freedom  of  that  which 
is  rational  and  personal.  We  shall  classify  them  under  the 
several  heads  indicated  by  the  different  interests  which  give 
their  spring  to  the  producing  agency. 

1 .  JEsthetiQ  facts. — ^The  merely  animal  sentient  nature 
finds  that  which  is  agreeable  in  all  the  five  senses.  There  is 
the  appetitive  force  inducing  a  craving  for  its  object  of  grat- 
ification In  them  all.  The  agreeable  sensations  from  temper- 
ature, odors,  and  viands,  as  merely  animal,  will  be  more  in- 
tensely appetitive  than  colors  and  sounds ;  and  thus  the 
senses  of  feeling,  smelling,  and  tasting,  are  more  important, 
as  sources  of  gratification,  to  the  animal  than  seeing  and 


1 


FACTS    IN    FINITE    PERSONALITY.  473 

Searing.  Doubtless,  also,  the  mere  animal  may  re-produce, 
in  a  dreaming  fancy  other  than  distinct  memory,  the  fictions 
of  past  sensations,  and  so  far  live  in  the  enjoyment  of  fan- 
cied happiness ;  and  in  such  a  world  of  the  animal  fancy,  it 
is  just  as  little  to  be  doubted  that  feelings,  smells  and  tastes 
will  have  an  ascendency,  as  fictions,  quite  as  decidedly  over 
sounds  and  sights,  as  they  have  in  actual  animal  gratifica- 
tion. Let  the  animal  nature  do  what  it  may,  in  actual  grat« 
ification  or  fancy,  and  it  will  obey  the  conditions  of  appetite. 
But,  we  find  this  remarkable  fact  in  humanity,  that  the 
two  senses  least  intensely  appetitive  are  the  sole  media 
through  which  the  play-impulse  can  be  at  all  reached. 
Sights  and  sounds  have  ever  their  definite  outlines,  and  we 
can  give  shape  to  the  color  and  form  in  tune  to  the  sound. 
It  is  not  so  much  the  object  seen  and  heard,  as  the  form  in 
which  it  appears  that  interests  us.  Our  pleasure  is  not  in 
the  matter^  but  in  the  form  in  which  the  matter  comes  to 
us.  Nor  is  it  every  form  that  pleases,  much  less  that  it  is 
mere  form ;  it  must  be  such  form  as  may  blend  with  life, 
and  figure  to  the  mind  some  in-dwelling  emotion.  It  must 
touch  some  chord  of  sentient  life,  and  awaken  sentiment, 
and  is  thus  aesthetic.  Its  life  is  sentimental.  Tiie  murmur 
of  the  waterfall,  the  sighing  of  the  wind,  the  very  silence 
of  the  night,  must  all  put  on  a  living  form ;  and  the  land- 
scape, the  fountain,  the  sky,  the  rosy  dawn  or  crimson  eve, 
must  all  glow  with  an  inner  life,  and  the  form  be  vitalized 
and  not  some  dry  and  dead  husks,  which  life  has  thrown 
aside  as  its  mere  exuviae.  Not  that  there  is  life ;  not  that 
there  is  form ;  but  that  there  is  life  in  form,  that  there  is 
living  form,  is  there  beauty.  Tliis  is  every  where  in  nature, 
coming  to  man  as  a  perpetual  visitant  through  the  eye  and 


474  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    LAW. 

ear,  yea,  as  a  constant  presence  where  we  have  but  to  awake 
in  consciousness  and  find  ourselves  ever  gladdened  by  it. 

*'  There's  beauty  all  around  our  paths, 
If  but  our  watchful  eyes, 
Can  trace  it  midst  familiar  things, 
And  through  their  lowly  guise." 

All  this,  though  in  nature,  is  as  nothing  tc  the  mere  ani 
m'i.).  Humanity  finds  it,  separates  the  mere  matter  from  it, 
and  has  the  beauty  of  nature  in  its  pure  living  forms  as 
objective  to  daily  contemplation.  But  much  more  than  this. 
Humanity  is  not  restricted  to  beauty  as  nature  gives  it ;  the 
whole  world  of  art  belongs  to  man,  and  he  may  fill  it  with 
his  own  living  forms  of  beauty.  Here  lies  his  aesthetic 
power.  He  may  not  only  find  what  beauty  nature  has,  and 
take  it  purified  from  nature  and  make  it  his  own ;  but  he  can 
create  for  himself  a  beauty  more  perfect  than  nature  any 
where  can  give  to  him,  and  put  his  own  ApoUos  into  nature, 
and  from  his  own  perfect  ideal  beauty  criticise  the  beauty  of 
both  nature  and  art.  He  plays  with  nature,  with  his  own 
productions  of  the  pencil  and  the  chisel,  and  sports  in  a  sub- 
jective ideal  world  of  beauty  more  rich  and  glowing  in  its 
living  forms  than  matter  can  any  where  take  upon  itself,  and 
his  inner  ear  hears  music,  and  his  inner  eye  sees  blended 
color  and  shape  in  living  expression,  which  no  combinations 
or  sublimations  of  matter  may  convey  to  outer  hearing  or 
sight.  How  completely  can  he  include  all  that  is  or  may  be, 
in  any  general  class  of  beauty  "in  earth  or  sky  or  human 
form  or  face  divine,"  within  his  more  complete  ideal  arche- 
type !  How  effectually  comprehend  both  nature  and  art,  aa 
made  objective,  in  his  all-encompassing  subjective  creations ! 
Here  are  all  the  facts  of  anaesthetic  comprehension,  on  wlucb 


PACTS    IN     FINITE    PERSONALITY.  476 

we  need  not  longer  dwell,  and  whose  particulars  we  need 
not  minutely  recapitulate,  and  the  only  inquiry  important  for 
us  now,  though  in  the  midst  of  so  much  to  interest,  is  simply 
for  the  law  which  holds  all  these  facts  in  colligation.  Whence 
the  spring  and  interest  in  this  play-impulse  ?  and  how  does 
humanity  comprehend  its  own  apart  from  nature,  and  draw 
the  encompassing  line  around  the  world  of  art?  And  how 
say  that  nature,  in  all  her  forms  of  beauty,  is  yet  included 
in  the  more  complete  aesthetic  world  ?  All  this  it  is  not  dif 
ficult  to  answer,  and  the  answer  reveals  the  law  which  holds 
in  colligation  all  the  facts  of  an  aesthetic  comprehension. 

Take  from  humanity  its  free  personality,  and  leave  all 
that  is  animal  un weakened  and  unrestrained  in  its  sentient 
force,  and  you  will  have  simply  the  agreeable — the  appetitive 
want  and  the  conforming  gratification.  Put  the  rational 
into  humanity,  that  it  may  separate  the  living  form  from  the 
material  in  nature,  and  you  will  have  the  beautiful — the 
serene  interest  in  and  the  cheering  contemplation  of  reason 
upon,  its  rational  forms,  which  express  sentient  life.  Shut 
this  rational  up  so  completely  within  nature,  that  it  must  go 
only  to  the  forms  in  ilature  for  its  beauty,  and  take  what 
nature  has,  and  satisfy  itself  with  what  nature  gives,  and 
you  have  imprisoned  it  within  nature  and  bound  it  in  servi- 
tude to  nature ;  and  now,  although  you  can  not  quench  its 
interest  in  beauty  above  all  appetite,  yet  you  compel  it  to 
drudge  in  nature  and  work  on  nature's  conditions  for  nature's 
wages,  and  it  is  cheerful  play-impulse  no  longer.  But,  merely 
let  the  sphere  of  the  rational  intersect  the  sphere  of  the  phy- 
sical, and  while  the  rational  and  the  animal  are  compounded 
in  humanity,  let  the  rational  have  its  own  pure  sphere  stretch- 
ing away  beyond  all  intersection  with  the  physical ;  and  ^k  as. 


476  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    LAW. 

that  the  rational  can  both  act  within  nature  and  elevate  itself 
abov-e  nature;  and  either  find  nature's  own  beautiful  form  or 
put  its  own,  impressed  upon  the  material  as  art,  within 
nature ;  or,  in  the  productive  imagination,  blend  its  own 
forms  am.id  the  colors  and  sounds  of  nature ;  or,  quite  away 
from  nature  create  its  own  pure  ideals  in  its  own  subjective 
being;  and  in  all  this,  you  have  a  free  personality,  which 
comes  within  and  excludes  itself  from  nature  at  its  pleasure, 
and  may  make  nature  its  play-ground  and  not  its  work- 
shop. 

And  such  is  manifestly  the  aesthetic  law  of  humanity — a 
law  of  liberty  in  personality.  Beauty  must  dwell  in  living 
forms;  and  must  be  contemjolated  to  be  known;  and  so  far 
the  world  of  beauty  is  conditioned  to  space  and  time,  and 
there  can  not  be  an  absolute  beauty.  But  humanity  is  not 
shut  up  to  nature  for  its  beauty.  It  can  create  its  own  ;  and 
judge  nature's  beauty  by  its  own  ;  and  put  its  own,  as  art, 
into  nature,  or  keep  it  as  subjective  ideal  out  of  nature ;  and 
separate  it§  own  from  nature,  and  comprehend  its  own  as  ori- 
ginated and  consummated  in  its  own  action  ;  and  can  encom- 
pass nature's  beauty  by  the  greater  completeness  of  its  own 
expressed  sentiment.  Humanity  is  thus  aesthetic  compre- 
hension, solely  from  the  prerogative  of  its  free  personality. 

2.  Mathematical  Facts. — Humanity  is  competent  to  ful- 
fill all  the  claims  of  a  pure  mathematical  science.  Man  con- 
structs particular  diagrams,  and  in  a  process  of  intuition 
attains  universal  demonstrations.  That  this  can  not  be  in 
virtue  of  the  animal  element  of  his  being  is  sufficiently  mani- 
fest from  the  fact  that  no  animal,  however  sagacious  in  con- 
cluding from  experience,  ever  rises  to  the  most  simple  intui' 
tions  in  the  region  of  pure  mathematical  science.     We  may 


I 


PACTS     TN    FIXITE    PEKSONALITY.  477 

soon  determine  why  this  must  be  so;  inasmuch  as  nothing 
of  the  sphere  of  the  rational  comes  within  the  sensual  nature 
of  the  sphere,  and  there  is  no  free  personality  that  capaci- 
tates for  a  2^riori  constructions  in  which  may  be  found  uni- 
versal demonstrations. 

The  brute  constructs  the  content  in  the  sensibility  into  a 
phenomenon  as  perfectly  as  man,  and  in  some  cases  of  animal 
vision  the  perception  is  more  acute  and  minutely  exact  than 
through  the  human  organ.  To  the  mere  animal,  there  may 
thus  be  all  the  empirical  intuitions  of  greater  and  less,  con- 
tainer and  contained,  like  and  unlike,  etc. ;  and  the  capacity 
to  change  the  outward  action,  from  a  change  in  the  percep- 
tions, may  be  within  the  endowment  of  mere  brute  nature. 
There  may  be  widely  different  degrees  of  brute  sagacity, 
from  a  less  or  more  restricted  capacity  to  judge  according 
to  sense,  but  in  the  highest  exhibitions  of  it,  the  whole  will 
stop  within  the  empirical  intuition,  and  can  never  reach  the 
region  of  pure  intuition.  The  animal  judgment  controls  no 
further  than  taught  by  sense  in  experience,  and  can  use  only 
what  it  perceives  or  remembers  ;  but  can  construct  no  pure 
diagrams  in  which  an  a  priori  necessity  and  universality  is 
attained,  and  from  which  alone  pure  mathematical  demon- 
stration can  be  educed. 

Man,  on  the  other  hand,  constructs  his  pure  forms,  not 
at  all  as  the  copies  from  perceived  or  remembered  phenom- 
ena, but  perfect  and  complete  beyond  what  any  experience 
can  attain  ;  and  these  pure  figures  he  combines  in  varied 
diagrams  according  to  the  purposes  of  the  demonstration, 
and  in  tliese  combined  pui'e  figures  he  carries  his  intuition 
onward  step  by  step,  till  he  attains  his  conclusion.  Nor  is  it 
at  all  necessary  that  he  should  construct  new  diagrams  au<] 


478  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    LA#, 

attain  new  conclusions  for  every  particular  of  a  class,  noi 
even  to  so  multiply  them  as  to  deduce  a  genei-al  rule  from 
the  many  examples ;  his  one  demonstration  is  as  conclusive 
for  the  universal  as  for  the  particular.  When  he  has  con- 
structed three  points  in  the  same  plane  in  pure  space,  he  has 
not  only  this  intuition  that  these  three  points  are  in  the  same 
plane,  but  his  diagram  is  quite  sufficient  also  for  the  intuition 
in  a  universal  axiom,  that  any  three  points  in  space  must  ever 
lie  in  the  same  plane.  Once,  to  demonstrate  the  three  angles 
of  a  triangle  to  be  together  equal  to  two  right  angles,  is  a 
demonstration  in  the  particular  conclusive  for  the  universal. 
And  here  man  may  multiply  his  diagrams  and  enlarge  the 
field  of  his  mathematical  demonstrations,  and  his  mathematical 
science  will  be  comprehended  within  his  constructions  and 
the  intuitive  processes  through  which  he  passes  to  his  con- 
clusions. Men  may  widely  differ  as  mathematicians,  but  in 
all  cases  their  mathematical  science  is  as  their  constructed 
diagrams  and  their  completed  processes  of  intuition.  And 
so  of  humanity  entire,  we  can  say,  that  it  is  mathematician 
in  so  far  as  it  constructs  pure  diagrams  and  completes  the 
processes  of  distinct  intuitions.  We  have  the  facts  of  a  com- 
prehending agency  in  this  field  of  mathematical  science,  but 
the  comprehension  is  only  in  this,  that  an  intellectual  agency 
constructs  the  particular  diagram,  and  a  process  of  intuition 
attains  the  conclusion  which,  in  that  class,  is  universal  demon- 
stration. Humanity  comprehends  itself  as  mathematician  in 
its  capacity  for  pure  construction  and  intuition  that  embraces 
universals. 

And  now,  this  whole  law  of  mathematical  comprehension 
is  manifestly  nothing  other  than  that  of  free  personality  in 
humanity.     An  interest  of  reason  for  mathematical  tiuth  is 


FACTS    12?     FIXITE    PERSONALITY.  479 

adequate  spring  for  all  mathematical  construction  and  com- 
pleting of  the  process  of  intuition,  without  any  interference 
from  any  want  in  a  sensory,  and  even  against,  and  above, 
and  in  opposition  to  all  such  wants.  The  mathematician 
may  regard  wholly  the  ends  of  sense,  and  make  his  science 
wholly  subservient  to  the  agreeable  in  human  wants  ;  but  he 
is  then  a  servant  to  his  sentient  nature,  and  is  working  for 
wages.  He  may  have  an  ethical  claim,  which  involves  the 
w^orthiness  of  his  moral  character ;  and  his  mathematical 
study  will  then  be  loyalty  to  the  claims  of  duty.  But  he 
may  also  have  only  the  end  of  mathematical  truth,  and  his 
whole  action  be  prompted  and  directed,  purely  in  the  inter- 
est of  reason,  for  science ;  and  in  such  case,  the  spring  though 
not  an  imperative  is  manifestly  also  not  appetitive.  It  is  a 
love  of  mathematical  truth,  and  prompts  to  action  in  mathe- 
matical demonstration  solely  for  the  truth's  sake.  It  is  of 
the  same  class  as  in  art,  though  a  more  serious  and  grave 
employment  than  in  the  reason's  play  wnth  the  beautiful. 
There  is  not  the  servile  drudgery  as  in  working  for  the  wages 
of  sense,  though  the  activity  does  not  rise  to  the  dignity  and 
holiness  of  an  ethical  imperative  in  its  own  right.  It  gives 
freedom  from  the  necessity  of  nature.  It  has  the  spring  of 
the  serene  interest  in  the  play-impulse,  and  can  take  an  alter- 
native to  all  the  ends  of  a  sentient  nature,  and  in  its  own 
freedom  originate  its  pure  diagrams  from  itself,  and  go 
through  the  processes  of  its  intuitions  in  the  rational  love  to 
science  as  the  end  of  its  demonstrations ;  and  in  this  free- 
dom of  the  rational  is  found  the  only  compass  by  which  to 
determine  to  each  person,  and  to  all  humanity,  the  jompre- 
hendins:  of  its  mathematical  science.  The  diasrram  must  be 
in  some  diversity  of  the  pure  space  and  time,  but  it  is  wholly 


480  THE    REASON     IN    ITS    LAW. 

indifferent  what  diversity  in  the  pure  space  and  time ;  it  may 
be  in  the  one  whole  of  space  and  time  with  nature,  or  in 
any  mirrored  space,  or  in  any  purely  subjective  space  in  the 
primitive  intuition ;  but  in  all  cases  the  person's  own  free 
constructions  and  intuitions  will  be  comprehensive  of  all  his 
mathematics.  He  neither  measures  nor  copies  nature  as  his 
pattern,  but  makes  his  own  perfect  lines  and  angles  and  cir- 
cles, and  asks  no  want  in  the  sense  to  condition  his  action 
and  hire  or  drive  him  to  his  work  ;  but  he  freely  engages  in 
it,  in  the  cheerfulness  of  its  own  interest. 

8.  Philosophical  Facts. — The  animal  may  be  philosopher 
to  this  extent,  that  in  the  experience  of  antecedent  and  con- 
sequent in  the  flowing  events  of  time  there  may  be  appre- 
hended a  successive  connection  and  orderly  ongoing  of 
nature.  A  generalization  of  this  experience  may  give  the 
rule  for  anticipating  what  is  coming,  and  the  dictate  to  shaj^e 
the  conduct  accordingly,  in  proportion  to  the  number  of 
facts  which  may  be  gathered  within  the  induction.  But  to 
whatever  extent  of  sagacity  such  a  force  might  reach,  it 
would  be  bound  in  nature  and  subjected  utterly  to  the 
conditions  of  a  necessitated  experience.  Pure  philosophy 
reaches  much  higher  than  this,  and  determines  the  physical 
forces  which  must  condition  all  sequences,  and  bind  nature 
together  in  one  universe  and  one  orderly  and  already  condi- 
tioned method  of  development.  It  apprehends  nature  not 
merely  as  from  experience  that  so  it  is,  but  from  the  higher 
point  of  its  a  priori  conditions  that  so  it  must  be.  Nature 
is  apprehended  in  its  physical  laws  ;  and  it  is  thus  seen  that 
these  condition  each  event  in  its  own  place  in  the  flowing 
sequences,  and  fix  it  to  both  its  place  in  space  and  its  period 
in  time,  and  that  they  thereby  determine  a  whole  of  space 


PACTS    IN    FIXITE     PEKSONALITY.  481 

and  of  time,  and  not  mere  appearance  in  coming  and  depart- 
ing phenomena  each  in  its  separate  place  and  period.  It  takes 
force,  as  in  any  possible  substances  and  causes,  and  deter- 
mines what  is  truth  in  reference  to  any  possible  nature  of 
things.  All  possible  nature  must  be  determinable  in  its  place 
in  a  whole  of  space,  and  in  its  period  in  a  Avhole  of  time ; 
and  in  order  to  this  the  phenomenal  qualities  and  events 
must  stand  in  a  permanent  substance,  come  out  of  a  perdur- 
ing  source,  and  connect  themselves  through  successive  causes 
and  concomitant  reciprocal  influences.  This  is  not  only  what 
a  particularly  existing  nature  is,  but  what  all  possible  nature, 
as  determinable  in  space  and  time,  must  be.  A  pure  phil- 
osophy is  thus  as  comprehensive  as  pure  mathematics.  The 
mathematician  comprehends  in  one  intuition,  all  that  may  in 
any  way  have  place  and  period ;  the  philosopher  compre- 
hends in  one  discursion,  all  that  may  in  any  way  have  deter- 
minable place  and  period  in  a  whole  of  space  and  of  time. 
All  sensation,  that  is  to  be  phenomenon  in  place  and  period, 
must  be  definitely  conjoined ;  and  all  phenomenon,  that  is 
to  be  nature  in  a  whole  of  space  and  time,  must  be  connected 
in  substances  and  causes.  Humanity  has  thus  the  compre- 
hension of  nature  in  a  philosophy,  as  truly  as  the  compre- 
hension of  forms  in  a  mathematical  science.  We  have  a 
universal  truth  of  physical  principles,  as  completely  as  a  uni- 
versal truth  of  mathematical  demonstrations.  We  know 
what  physical  force  is,  as  comprehensively  as  we  know  what 
mathematical  form  is ;  viz.,  that  what  is  demonstrated  in 
eacli,  to  be  true  in  the  particular,  is  therein  a  demonstrated 
truth  for  the  universal ;  so  that  we  may  as  conclusively  affirm 
— like  causes  must  universally  produce  Hke  eflfects,  and  that 
action  and  reaction  must  universally  be  equal  j  as  that  any 

21 


482  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    LAW. 

three  points  must  be  universally  in  the  same  plane,  or  that 
the  three  angles  of  any  triangle  must  universally  be  together 
equal  to  two  right  angles.  Humanity  as  philosopher  con- 
cludes with  equal  necessity  and  universality  that  humanity  as 
mathematician  does. 

And,  here,  [)recisely  the  same  principles  apply,  as  above 
in  the  case  of  mathematical  comprehensiveness.  There  is 
the  serene  interest  of  the  play-impulse,  as  spring  in  philoso- 
phy, as  really  as  in  mathematical  science.  The  philosopher 
may  be  slave  to  sense,  and  work  for  pay  ;  or  loyal  subject  to 
an  ethical  sovereign,  and  act  from  duty ;  but,  he  may  also 
from  pure  love  of  philosophical  truth  push  on  his  investiga- 
tion, and  live,  and  act  indifferent  to  all  the  ends  of  sense, 
and  solely  in  the  serene  interest  of  philosophizing  freely  for 
the  science's  sake.  And  here,  it  is  only  in  the  capacity  to 
rise  into  this  region  of  the  free  personality,  that  humanity  is 
competent  to  comprehend  its  own  philosophy.  Just  so  far 
as  it  attains  the  conception  of  physical  forces,  and  makes  its 
discursions  from  phenomenon  to  phenomenon  through  them, 
as  the  substances  and  causes  which  connect  all  together,  it 
has  a  demonstrated  natural  philosophy ;  and  only  so  for  as 
this  reaches,  can  it  conclude  in  any  judgments  beyond  its 
own  experience.  Each  man  builds  his  own  philosophy,  by 
his  own  notional  conceptions  of  the  substances  and  causes 
he  uses  for  connecting  events  ;  and  we  can  comprehend  each 
man's  philosophy,  or  each  man  can  comprehend  his  own 
philosophy,  or  any  comprehension  can  be  made  of  the  phil- 
osophy of  humanity  generally,  only  as  the  free  personality, 
in  every  case,  is  made  the  compass  for  originating  and  con- 
summating the  entire  connections  of  the  philosophical  sys- 
tem.    If  he  only  takes  nature,  as  experience  gives  it  to  him  ,* 


PACTS    IN    FINITE    PERSONALITY.  483 

he  has  it  just  as  the  animal  has  it,  and  is  simply  an  empiric : 
if  he  has  his  own  conception  of  substances  and  causes  as 
primitive  forces,  and  makes  his  own  discursions  through  these 
to  his  conclusions  in  a  systematic  judgment ;  then  has  he  a 
philosophy  which  is  his  own  as  belonging  to  the  universal 
reason,  and  is  comprehended  only  as  his  in  these  free  con- 
ceptions, and  discursions  of  his  own  rational  being.  All 
philosophy  is  mere  particular  fact  and  not  universal  truths 
except  in  the  free  personality. 

4.  Psychological  Facts. — In  our  animal  sentient  nature, 
we  may  have  a  psychology  which  reaches  over  the  whole 
field  of  our  conscious  experience.  The  phenomena  of  the 
internal  sense  may  be  singly  apprehended,  and  even  a  broad 
induction  of  such  remembered  experiences  may  be  made 
and  generalized  and  classified,  by  an  understanding  judging 
only  by  sense.  But  if  all  experience  could  be  thus  general- 
ized, it  would  simply  give  us  a  psychology  as  a  fact,  and  ca- 
pacitate us  to  afiirm  that  so  experience  in  consciousness  is  ; 
but  we  could  not  thus  attain  any  a  priori  conditions  for 
these  mental  facts,  and  determine  that  so  universally  human 
consciousness  must  be.  We  should  have  no  universal  truth 
in  the  operations  of  mind,  and  thus  no  rational  psychologi- 
cal science. 

But,  humanity  is  competent  to  reach  an  a  priori  field, 
quite  above  and  conditional  for  all  consciousness.  The  pure 
diversity  in  space  and  time  can  be  taken  in  the  reason,  and 
the  whole  operation  of  conjunction  in  all  possible  definite 
form  be  determined.  And  also  the  conditional  space-filling 
and  time-abiding  force,  as  substance  and  cause,  can  be  taken 
in  the  reason,  and  all  possible  operation  of  connecting  events 
in  a  nature  of  things  be  determined.     And  once  more,  the 


484  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    LAW. 

ideal  of  the  absolute  may  be  attained  in  the  reason,  and  all 
possible  operation  of  comprehending  nature  thereby  deter- 
mined. The  entire  field  of  intellectual  action  is  thus  brought 
within  its  a  priori  conditions,  and  we  have  a  psychology, 
not  from  experience  merely,  but  rationally  demonstrated 
and  determining  how  experience  itself  is  possible.  Each 
man  has  thus  his  psychology  so  far  forth,  and  only  so  far 
forth,  as  he  has  attained  the  primitive  elements  of  these  in- 
tellectual operations  of  conjunction,  connection,  and  compi-e- 
hension,  and  determined  their  ideal  possibility ;  and  human- 
ity in  general  comprehends  just  so  much  of  psychological 
science,  as  has  been  d  priori  determined  in  these  operations 
conditional  for  all  intellectual  cognition.  All  possible  intel- 
lectual apprehension  lies  before  humanity,  and  by  so  much 
as  human  investigation  has  already  reached,  has  humanity 
acquired  a  true  science  of  mind. 

We  have,  therefore,  the  same  law  for  the  facts  of  com- 
prehension in  psychological  science,  that  we  have  before 
found  for  comprehension  in  philosophy,  mathematics,  and 
assthetics.  Only  in  the  free  personality,  above  and  quite  in- 
dependent of  a  sentient  nature,  do  we  originate  and  con- 
summate all  our  psychological  demonstrations.  We  find 
humanity  to  have  a  comprehension  of  its  psychology  only  as 
it  may  move  in  rational  freedom. 

5.  Ethical  Facts.— In  all  the  foregoing  facts  of  a  com- 
prehending reason  in  humanity,  we  have  been  wholly  con- 
fined to  that  region  where  the  physical  and  rational  spheres 
intersect  each  other,  and  have  found  the  free  personality 
only  in  the  rational  as  it  could  make  its  spring  in  its  own 
interest,  and  thus  always  originate  action  alternative  to  the 
gratifications  of  sentient  nature ;  and  yet  never  rising  to  the 


PACTS    IX    FINITE    PERSONALITY.  485 

purely  spiritual,  as  wholly  independent  of  a  possible  or  ideal 
nature.  Esthetic  personality  stands  the  lowest  in  this  com- 
plex region  ;  above  the  animal,  inasmuch  as  it  may  contem- 
plate beauty  and  create  in  the  productive  imagination  its 
own  world  of  living  forms,  Avithout  any  aids  or  promptings 
of  sense,  and  solely  from  its  love  of  the  beautiful ;  but  still 
below  the  purely  spiritual,  inasmuch  as  all  the  pure  ideals  of 
art  must  take  some  form,  and  be  conditioned  within  a  pos- 
sible nature  of  things.  Scientific  personality,  whether  in 
mathematics,  philosophy,  or  psychology,  stands  higher  but 
still  within  this  complex  region ;  above  the  animal,  for  the 
same  reason,  that  it  may  pursue  science  for  its  own  sake,  and 
make  for  itself  its  own  subjective  system,  which  shall  have 
strict  universality  beyond  all  the  generalizations  of  experi- 
ence ;  but  yet  below  the  purely  spiritual,  inasmuch  as  all  its 
scientific  systems,  even  in  their  ideal  creations,  must  be  con- 
ditioned in  possible  nature.  The  Avorld  of  taste,  though  of 
the  free  originations  of  the  productive  reason,  must  still 
have  its  artistic  product  put  objective  in  nature,  and  holding 
some  matter  within  its  living  forms  of  beauty;  and  the 
world  of  scientific  truth,  though  a  free  origination  of  rea- 
son like  art,  and  higher  than  art  in  that  it  is  not  conditioned 
to  embrace  any  content  of  matter,  must  still  be  restricted  to 
what  is  possible  to  be  given  in  nature,  and  conditioned 
within  the  determinations  of  space  and  time  ;  and  thus  both 
beauty  and  truth,  art  and  science,  Avhile  possible  to  be  given 
only  in  the  comprehension  of  a  free  personality,  are  yet  in- 
competent to  rise  into  the  region  of  the  purely  spiritual 
divorced  from  all  the  conditions  of  a  possible  nature,  and 
attain  to  the  dignity  of  an  ethical  imperative,  which  does 
not  merely  cheer  in  its  own  interest  but  obliges  in  its  own 


486  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    LAW. 

right.  There  is  a  comprehension  of  nature  as  below  human- 
ity, but  not  a  comprehension  of  humanity  itself  as  both  nat- 
ural and  suj^ernatural ;  sense  and  spirit.  For  this  purpose 
:t  is  necessary  that  we  be  able  to  rise  above  the  intersection 
of  the  two  spheres  and  stand  wholly  and  purely  within  the 
spiritual.  In  the  play-impulse  we  rise  above  the  animal ;  we 
attain  the  interests  by  which  we  may  cultivate,  refine,  and 
enlighten  savage  humanity,  and  thus  eifectually  lift  man 
above  his  brutal  instincts  and  appetites,  and  this  is  surely  a 
great  achievement  and  most  auspicious  beginning ;  but  we 
do  not  thus  introduce  him  to  the  claims  of  an  ethical  life, 
and  the  communings  of  a  spiritual  society.  Neither  the 
beauty  of  art,  nor  the  truth  of  science,  while  they  elevate 
him  above  the  physical  and  the  animal,  can  possibly  place 
man  among  the  moral  and  the  immortal. 

But  humanity  has  the  facts  of  an  ethical  comprehension, 
and  which  give  to  it  that  which  is  its  own  as  solely  the  ob- 
ligated and  the  responsible ;  and  as  higher  and  more  impor- 
tant than  any  yet  considered,  it  is  now  especially  incumbent 
that  we  attain  a  clear  view  of  these  facts  of  an  ethical  com- 
prehension, and  see  whether  they  all  come  ultimately  within 
the  colligation  of  the  same  law  of  a  free  personality ;  the 
freedom  only  so  much  the  higher,  as  the  personality  by 
which  we  encompass  the  facts  is  the  more  exalted.  We 
here  need,  not  merely  the  aesthetic  and  the  scientific  free- 
man, and  thus  the  artist  and  philosopher  as  person ;  but  the 
ethic  freeman,  and  thus  the  sage  in  his  wisdom  and  virtue. 
We  do  not  here  reach  to  the  sanctions  of  religion,  natural 
or  revealed,  because  we  are  not  now  in  the  recognition  of 
the  absolute,  but  only  the  finite  personality ;  we  have  a  mo- 
rality in  the  right  of  humanity,  and  we  here  seek  for  the 


FA.CTS    IN    FINITE    PERSONALITY.  48^ 

law  of  its  comprehension.  In  order  to  this  our  hypothesis 
demands  insthe  facts  a  spiritual  or  ethical  personaUty ;  and 
we  need  under  this  last  division,  this  important  subdivision 
in  our  induction — Firsts  the  facts  which  indicate  our  recog- 
nition of  an  ethical  personality  in  humanity;  and,  Secondly 
the  facts  which  evince  that  we  make  this  ethical  free  person- 
ality the  perpetual  and  only  law  of  all  ethical  comprehen- 
sion. 

First ^  the  facts,  which  indicate  the  universal  recognition 
of  an  ethical  personality  in  humanity.  By  this  is  meant  the 
recognition  that  the  human  may  always  figure  himself  not 
merely  as  material  or  animal,  nor  yet  merely  as  artistic  or 
scientific,  but  altogether  as  spiritual  in  an  ethical  and 
immortal  being ;  and  thus  possessing  an  end  which  is 
imperative  in  its  own  right,  and  for  its  own  sake.  This 
is  seldom  explicable  even  to  him  who  yet  manifestly  recog- 
nizes such  ethical  personality.  Very  often  from  the  de- 
lusive false  play  of  an  understanding  which  may  con- 
nect and  never  comprehend,  the  very  conception  of  such  an 
ethical  personality  is  aflSrmed  to  be  an  impossibility,  inas- 
much as  it  involves  an  absurdity.  And  so  indeed  it  would 
be,  were  the  connections  in  nature's  conditioned  substances 
and  causes  our  only  method  of  judging,  inasmuch  as  all 
judgments  of  existence  must  thus  be  discursive  and  never 
comprehensive ;  yet  we  now  undertake  to  adduce  some  of 
many  fiicts,  which  indicate  the  universal  recognition  of  such 
ethical  personality  in  humanity,  though  quite  inexplicable  or 
even  speculatively  denied  by  him,  who,  notwithstanding, 
does  most  unequivocally  evince  his  full  recognition  of  it. 

(1.)  A7i  ethical  end  controlling  hy  an  imperative  all 
other  ends. — A  sentient  nature  with  its  animal  aj  petite  must 


488  THE     REASON    IN    ITS    L/W. 

have  one  particular  course  in  which  its  highest  gratifications 
in  the  aggregate  will  be  attainable.  This  may  be  found 
from  a  generalization  of  experience  in  a  calculation  of  con 
sequences,  or  be  given  as  a  revelation  from  some  higher 
source  of  knowledge.  In  whatever  way  attained  it  is  a  dic- 
tate of  pnidence^  resting  upon  the  consideration  of  the 
greatest  happiness.  Moreover,  a  sentient  nature  in  the 
midst  of  other  sentient  beings,  must  have  one  particular 
course  for  its  action  in  which  it  will  render  itself  the  most 
useful  to  all  others,  and  so  to  every  being  in  that  commu- 
nity of  sentient  natures,  there  is  the  course  for  each  to  be 
the  most  useful  for  all.  And  whether  such  a  line  of  action 
be  attained  by  an  accurate  calculation  of  general  conse- 
quences or  by  revelation  from  a  higher  experience,  its  course 
is  the  dictate  of  benevolence  or  public  utility^  and  rests  upon 
the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number.  These  rules 
of  action  are  conditioned  in  the  sentient  system,  and  are  as 
truly  facts,  things  made,  as  the  sentient  beings  themselves. 
The  dictates  are  made  in  making  the  sentient  beings,  and 
would  be  changed  in  any  change  in  the  constitutional  nature 
of  these  beings.  The  sentient  being  and  his  system  of  fel- 
low beings,  existing  as  they  do,  must  of  necessity  enforce 
such  dicta. 

When,  then,  we  put  the  inquiry — Why  be  prudent  ?  the 
answer  at  once  comes  from  the  sentient  craving  of  nature  j 
there  is  thus  the  higher  wages,  in  the  greater  sum  total  in 
individual  happiness.  Better  make  the  present  or  the  par- 
tial sacrifice,  for  the  future  and  the  greater  gratification. 
And  why  be  benevolent?  The  answer  of  a  sentient  nature 
must  be,  either  that  the  result  of  obeying  the  dictate  of 
benevolence  will  be  a  fuller  stream  of  gratificatic  n,  poured 


PACTS    IN    FINITE    PERSONALITY.  489 

oack  from  the  many  upon  the  one  ;  or  that  it  finds  within 
itself  an  appetitive  want,  which  is  most  gratified  in  seeing 
others  happy.  The  first  is  merely  prudence  in  the  form  of 
beneficence,  lending  to  get  more  in  return ;  the  last  is  mere 
kindness,  the  gratification  of  a  sympathy  which  craves  like 
any  other  appetite  ;  and  both  are  conditioned  in  the  necessi- 
ties of  a  nature  of  things,  on  all  sides.  Nature  wholly 
\vorks  in  and  controls  the  sentient  subject ;  and  nature  is 
also  the  lawgiver,  the  judge,  and  the  executioner.  It  is  in 
rain  to  rise  above  nature  by  any  attempt  and  question  any 
part  of  the  procedure  ;  either  the  obedience  or  disobedience 
of  the  subject,  for  a  conditioned  nature  controlled  him ;  or, 
the  legislative,  judicial,  and  executive  departments  of  the 
government,  for  these  are  all  conditioned  in  nature.  The 
animal  is  in  his  action  conditioned  to  the  craving  of  his  sen- 
tient nature,  whether  of  any  particular  appetite  or  the  high- 
est gratification  on  the  whole,  and  all  such  craving  is  neces- 
sitated by  the  antecedent  conditions,  and  then  the  ponder- 
ous iron  wheel  as  executive  in  nature  rolls  on,  crushing  the 
imprudent  and  the  unkind.  The  omnipotence  of  nature  is 
all  that  can  be  regarded ;  whether  in  the  good  or  bad  for- 
tune of  the  sentient  being ;  the  dictates  given ;  or,  the 
consequences  accruing  to  each  and  to  the  whole.  Human- 
ity, in  its  sentient  nature,  can  never  rise  to  any  end  other 
than  the  appetitive,  and  that  is  throughout  necessitated  in 
the  conditions  of  nature. 

But,  as  aesthetic  or  scientific,  humanity  has  ends  which 
may  entirely  control  those  of  sentient  nature.  Merely  as 
artist,  man  may  so  recognize  the  baseness  of  sacrificing 
taste  to  appetite,  and  selling  beauty  for  bread ;  that  he  shall 
thereby  hold  in  check  any  craving  of  sense,  and  refuse  to 

21* 


490  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    LAW. 

prostitute  his  genius  to  any  mercenary  consideration.  And 
merely  as  philosopher,  also,  he  may  so  regard  scientific  truth, 
that  he  sliall  hold  all  the  ends  of  animal  nature  wholly  sub- 
servient to  its  attainment ;  and  be  so  in  love  with  it,  that  no 
consideration  of  sensual  gratification  or  sacrifice  can  draw 
him  from  it.  Without  regard  to  the  ethical  claim  for  ve- 
racity, and  solely  from  the  stedfast  inner  adhesion  to  scien- 
tific truth,  Gallileo  departs  from  the  bigots  who  had  forced 
him  to  recant  his  doctrine  of  the  earth's  revolution,  still  re- 
peating to  himself "  but  it  does  turn."  There  may  very 
well  be  so  lofty  a  deference  to  the  interest  of  reason,  that 
the  man  shall  be  a  willing  martyr  to  the  beauty  of  art,  or 
to  the  truths  of  science.  This  is  not  the  sacriticing  of  ona 
gratified  want  for  a  greater ;  it  is  a  sacrifice  of  all  gratified 
wants,  in  order  not  to  debase  the  ends  of  reason  to  sense, 
and  sell  its  beauty  at  a  price,  and  barter  its  truth  for  a  hire- 
ling's wages.  Few,  perhaps,  may  possess  so  deep  and  ab- 
sorbing an  aesthetic  or  scientific  interest ;  but  to  every 
thinking  mind,  it  is  quite  manifest  how  humanity  may  be 
brought  up  to  such  an  elevation  of  rational  culture,  that  all 
of  sense  shall  be  made  to  succumb  to  the  rules  of  taste,  or 
defer  to  the  truths  of  science.  Here,  then,  is  a  field  for 
freedom ;  and  the  savage,  in  whom  the  sentient  completely 
reigns,  may  be  brought  up  into  it  from  his  state  of  brutality, 
and  attain  to  a  personality  in  liberty.  But  his  spring,  alter- 
native to  the  appetites  of  nature,  will  be  simply  the  love  of 
the  beautiful  and  the  true  restraining  the  gratification  of  the 
agreeable,  while  he  still  may  know  nothing  of  the  ethical  in 
its  imperatives  and  responsibilities ;  and  though  elevated 
quite  out  from  the  animal,  he  does  not  thus  attain  to  a  moi  il 
and  immortal  existence. 


FACTS    IN    FINITE    PERSONALITY.  491 

But  we  now  turn  to  a  fact  which  eveiy  mind  may  recog- 
nize, viz.,  an  end  in  moral  character,  or  worthiness  in  the 
ethical  personality,  which  wholly  subordinates  all  other  ends 
of  the  sentient  or  the  human  being,  and  makes  every  want 
of  the  animal  nature  and  every  interest  in  art  and  sciesce 
amenable  to  its  behests.  It  over-rules  both  prudence  and 
benevolence,  and  commands  by  a  higher  imperative  than  foi 
the  sake  of  happiness  or  of  kindness,  even  from  personal 
worthiness,  and  thus  that  the  action  ought  to  be  prudent 
and  kind.  And  this  higher  end  has  also  rightful  sway  over 
the  whole  world  of  art  and  science ;  and  is  imperative  that 
neither  beauty  in  taste,  nor  truth  in  philosopliy,  shall  be  pur- 
sued, otherwise  than  in  full  accordance  with  the  worthiness 
of  the  ethical  personality.  As  "  the  life  is  more  than  meat," 
so  is  the  integrity  of  moral  character  more  than  appetite  or 
art  or  science.  If  any  want  whatever,  or  any  happiness  in 
any  degree  or  duration,  or  any  interest  in  beauty  or  truth, 
induce  the  will  into  its  service  as  end,  so  that  it  shall  cease 
to  hold  the  highest  worthiness  of  the  ethical  personality  as 
supreme  end ;  then  is  the  moral  character  degraded  and  de- 
based ;  the  spiritual  birthright  is  sold  for  a  "  mess  of  pot- 
tage ;"  and  the  soul  is  forced  to  blush  in  conscious  shame,  in 
the  inner  witnessing  of  its  own  vileness.  "  The  spirit  of  a 
man  will  sustain  his  infirmity,  but  a  wounded  spirit  who  can 
bear  ?"  Whoso  thus  saveth  his  animal  life  shall  lose  the 
life  of  his  spirit.  This  every  where  recognized  fact,  of  an 
imperative  to  curb  every  appetite,  and  all  aesthetic  and  scien- 
tific interest,  by  the  higher  end  of  an  ethical  worthiness  ; 
and  to  have  no  happiness  nor  beauty  nor  science  in  the 
subversion  of  this  ultimate  end  and  right,  evinces  the 
universal  recognition  of  an  ethical  personality  in  humanity. 


492  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    LAW. 

(2.)  Ethical  affections  above  all  others. — That  which 
ministers  to  the  gratification  of  sentient  want  is  agreeable, 
and  that  which  offends  the  appetite  is  dis^agreeable.  Hence 
we  often  term  one  affection  or  love,  and  the  other  hatred. 
In  the  various  ways  in  which  the  agreeable  and  the  disagree- 
able apply  to  onr  sentient  natures,  there  may  be  the  emo- 
tions of  joy  or  sorrow,  gladness  or  grief,  hope  or  fear,  etc., 
and  in  this  manner  may  arise  all  the  constitutional  affections 
which  are  found  in  a  sentient  nature.  They  are  wholly  nat- 
ural affections,  inasmuch  as  they  are  wholly  necessitated  in 
the  conditions  of  the  sensory,  and  are  thus  wholly  bound  in 
a  nature  of  things.  Were  there  nothing  in  humanity  but 
the  wants  of  a  sentient  nature,  all  our  affections  must  be 
strictly  nature,  and  stand  in  their  conditioned  connections 
like  all  the  successions  in  the  physical  world.  And,  more- 
over, we  may  apply  the  beautiful  and  the  true  to  the  play- 
impulse,  and  awaken  the  cheerful  interest  which  gives  the 
rational  pleasures  of  taste  and  science  and  we  shall  have 
those  affections  in  humanity  in  which  the  artist  and  the  phi- 
losopher may  participate ;  but  though  these  affections  are 
awakened  in  freedom,  yet  are  they  all  circumscribed  within 
nature  and  conditioned  to  space  and  time,  inasmuch  as  these 
pure  objects  which  awaken  the  affections,  though  destitute 
of  matter,  must  yet  have  form,  and  though  above  the  sen- 
tient must  yet  abide  in  the  region  of  the  human.  To  pos- 
sess such  affections,  in  the  full  perfection  of  art  and  science, 
capacitates  for  no  participation  in  the  ethical  affections  of  the 
purely  spiritual  and  immortal. 

But  we  may  bring  in  here,  from  the  experience  of  hu- 
manity, an  array  of  facts  which  evince  the  full  recognition 
of  affections  that  can  come  from  no  such  parentage.     They 


FACTS    IN    FINITE    PERSONALITY.  493 

evince  their  pedigree  from  an  ethical  personaUty,  and  in  their 
own  right  take  precedence  over  all  other  affections.  They 
are  no  result  of  any  application  of  the  agreeable  to  a  senti- 
ent want,  nor  of  the  beautiful  to  an  aesthetic  or  of  the  true 
to  a  scientific  interest. 

AYhen  an  occasion  for  a  high  degree  of  sentient  gratifi- 
cation presents  itself,  but  with  the  clear  conviction  that  in- 
dulgence will  be  followed  by  a  more  than  counterbalancing 
sentient  suffering,  then  the  gratification  is  forborne  from  the 
dictate  of  prudence.  When  this  is  all  that  restrains,  the 
only  possible  affection  induced  in  the  experience  is  the  glad- 
ness that  so  much  sentient  evil  has  been  excluded,  blended 
with  a  certain  measure  of  self-esteem  for  the  prudential  fore- 
sight. But  when,  in  externally  similar  circumstances,  such 
affections  as  the  following  are  experienced,  viz.,  a  conscious 
self-approbation  in  an  act  of  self-denial  and  a  complacency 
in  the  review  of  the  act  as  worthy  of  my  spiritual  and  im- 
mortal being,  and  that  I  must  have  forfeited  my  self-respect 
and  found  occasion  to  hide  my  face  in  shame  at  my  degra- 
dation, if  I  had  done  otherwise,  we  then  surely  have  some- 
thing higher  than  any  dictate  of  prudence  on  the  ground  of 
greatest  happiness.  It  is  not  the  price  of  happiness  in 
greater  gratification,  but  the  intrinsic  dignity  and  worth  of 
my  ethical  personality ;  and  the  affection  is  wholly  that  of 
complacency  in  character,  not  of  gladness  in  so  cleverly  ex- 
cluding sentient  suffering.  And  moreover,  when  in  some 
period  of  intense  suffering  I  endure  it,  and  refuse  to  escape 
from  it  in  the  prudential  conviction  that  greater  suffering 
would  be  otherwise  unavoidably  incurred  ;  the  only  affection, 
which  this  can  induce  is  the  patience,  which  comforts  itself 
in  the  wretchedness  to  which  nature  dooms  me  by  reflecting 


494  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    LAW. 

that  it  is  better  so  than  to  change ;  I  could  only  throw  off 
this  burden  to  take  a  greater ;  I  could  not  make  myself  more 
happy  by  escaping,  I  am  the  less  miserable  by  enduring. 
But  if  now  such  considerations  and  aifections  as  the  folloAV- 
ing  come  up  ;  it  is  manly  to  endure ;  it  is  an  honor  to  hu- 
manity,  and  an  ennobling  of  character  to  stand  firmly  amid 
the  severity  of  these  suiferings ;  then  is  it  necessary  to  rec- 
ognize a  free  personality  altogether  above  any  appetitive 
want.  All  the  considerations  of  happiness  in  greater  grati- 
fication or  less  suffering  are  forever  banished  as  mean  and 
mercenary,  and  the  sole  question  is  the  end  of  my  own 
worthiness — what  in  the  right  of  the  spiritual  in  my  .human- 
ity is  my  duty  ? — and  whether  for  a  day,  for  life,  or  forever, 
I  shall,  as  I  ought,  stand  by  my  duty  to  the  rights  of  my 
ethical  personality,  and  bide  the  blow  that  any  force  in  con- 
ditioned nature  can  bring  upon  me. 

And  so,  also,  when  from  the  dictate  of  kindness  I  have 
made  great  sacrifices  to  increase  the  hapjDiness  and  relieve 
the  misery  of  man,  and  in  which  has  also  been  included  the 
dictate  of  prudence  in  that  thus  my  own  greatest  happiness 
is  promoted,  I  shall  doubtless  have  a  refined  gratification  of 
sympathetic  want  in  witnessing  the  fruits  of  my  kindness 
and  receiving  the  pledges  of  their  grateful  return,  and  while 
thoy  enjoy  the  happiness  I  have  imparted  I  also  enjoy  with 
a  sweeter  relish  the  happiness  that  flows  back  upon  me,  and 
I  find  it  thus  true  even  in  my  constitutional  nature  that  "i 
is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive."  But  if,  on  tho 
other  hand,  I  have  contemplated  humanity  as  spiritual  and 
not  merely  as  sentient,  and  have  had  the  worthiness  and  not 
merely  the  happiness  of  my  race  in  view ;  and  if  my  labor 
and  sacrifice  has  been  to  win  them  to  virtue,  and  that  the 


FACTS    IN    FINITE    PERSONALITY.  495 

rights  and  claims  of  the  spiritual  and  not  the  appetitive 
wants  of  the  sentient  have  been  my  end,  and  that  I  can  hold 
on  my  course  amid  discouragements,  and  hatred,  and  perse- 
cution ;  and,  when  at  all  successful,  if  I  rejoice  for  virtue's 
sake  in  their  recovered  dignity,  but  when  without  success, 
and  only  from  the  imperative  of  my  personality,  if  I  can 
still  persevere  in  my  duty,  and  find  my  reward  solely  in  the 
end  of  my  worthiness  without  one  sentient  want  gratified  ; 
then  in  all  this,  I  recognize  a  spring  to  action  which  can  not 
lie  in  the  dictates  of  prudence  and  benevolence,  and  can  never 
stand  in  a  generalized  self-love  nor  a  kind  sensibility,  but 
must  originate  solely  in  the  inner  witnessing  of  the  spirit,  as 
imperative  for  its  own  worthiness'  sake. 

If  an  emotion  of  reverence  ever  arises,  it  has  not  been  in 
the  presence  of  any  thing  which  nature,  material  or  sentient, 
can  set  forth.  I  may  fear,  wonder,  and  be  terrified  before 
the  working  forces  in  nature,  but  I  can  never  revere,  except 
as  I  find  a  personality,  which  in  his  own  right  can  hold 
every  appetite  and  afiection  that  nature  can  awaken  subject 
to  his  own  behest,  and  will  not  go  at  their  bidding  though 
nature  do  its  worst.  So  if  I  am  aifected  in  remorse^  I  at 
once  distinguish  it  from  regret  for  some  imprudence  or  un- 
kindness,  and  feel  that  it  bespeaks  something  more  than 
happiness  lost,  even  ethical  dignity  debased  and  worthiness 
of  moral  character  degraded.  I  may  experience  shame  in 
my  sentient  being,  if  some  conditions  in  nature  have  made 
me  to  appear  ludicrous  ;  or,  when  through  mere  imprudence 
I  have  exposed  myself  to  ridicule ;  but  I  well  know  the  dif- 
ference between  all  such  shame,  and  that  ethical  debase- 
ment, which  blushes  even  before  its  own  consciouness  that 
it  has  been  guilty  of  subjecting  the  spirit  to  the  flesh.    I  can 


496  THE     REASON    IN    ITS    LAW. 

grieve  under  nature's  bereaving  calamities,  and  weep  in  sor- 
row that  I  have  been  imprudent ;  but  I  shall  distinguish  all 
this  from  the  tears  of  contrition  and  penitential  sorrow  that 
duty  has  been  neglected,  and  my  virtuous  character  tarnished. 
I  know  in  all  cases,  the  mighty  difference  between  wounded 
sensibility,  and  violated  authority  ;  a  want  made  empty,  and 
a  right  wronged.  And  in  all  such  distinctions  of  affection, 
every  man  recognizes  the  existence  of  an  ethical  personality, 
which  alone  can  give  to  such  experiences  in  humanity  any 
exposition,  and  to  such  distinctions  of  affection  any  con- 
sistency. 

(3.)  Reciprocal  complacency  in  communion. — Different 
animals  herd  together,  induced  by  kindred-  appetites.  A 
constitutional  want  brings  man  into  society,  and  the  cravings 
of  nature  would  be  sufficient  force  for  collecting  human 
beings  into  communities.  Congenial  temperament,  the  in- 
stincts of  consanguinity,  common  pursuits  and  reciprocal 
advantages  bring  different  persons  together  and  hold  them 
in  companionship,  and  often  with  much  mutual  satisfaction. 
Very  much  of  what  is  termed  friendship  and  love  among* 
men  reposes  upon  such  conditions  in  nature.  But  all  this, 
operating  in  its  fullest  measure,  can  produce  no  reciprocal 
complacency.  Here  are  the  strongest  bonds  which  the  sen- 
sibility may  give  to  social  communion  ;  and  still  all  is  appe 
titive  and  conditioned  by  the  cravings  of  nature. 

A  higher  communion  may  be  cherished  in  the  cultivation 
of  similiar  tastes,  and  the  study  and  contemplation  of  the 
same  truths.  Art  and  science,  insomuch  as  they  rise  above 
sentient  wants,  give  purer  interests;  and  a  communion  of 
such  pm-e  interest  in  the  same  living  forms  of  beauty  and 
conceptions  of  eternal  truth,  will  constitute  rational  attach- 


FACTS    IX    FINITE    PERSONALITY.  497 

ment  far  superior  to  any  mutual  gratifications  of  animal 
want.  And  yet,  such  a  community  would  be  utterly  desti- 
tute of  mutual  ethical  complacency.  No  one  would  have 
the  inner  witness  of  his  worth,  and  the  imperatives  which  this 
imposed,  nor  could  any  thing  be  known  of  self-approbation, 
or  the  approbation  of  others.  All  communion  in  spiritual 
personality  would  be  impracticable,  for  they  have  not  as  yet 
waked  to  the  consciousness  of  such  an  existence. 

But  wholly  above  all  these  attachments,  we  have  exam- 
ples of  a  communion  in  common  rights  and  mutual  claims 
and  the  fulfillment  of  reciprocal  imperatives,  and  thus  attach- 
ments which  strike  their  root  in  virtue,  and  repose  upon 
confidence  in  moral  worth  and  integrity.  All  men  may 
witness  acts  of  virtue,  and  approve ;  but  the  virtuous  will 
be  conscious  of  more  than  approbation — there  will  be  a  com- 
placency and  sweet  communion  of  spirit  in  the  whole  trans- 
action. Every  mind  reveres  the  steadfast  good  will  which 
holds  firm  to  righteousness,  and  bears  up  in  duty  against  all 
inducement  and  danger;  but  a  vicious  mind,  though  com- 
pelled to  respect,  will  not  be  pleased  with  such  stern  and 
inflexible  consistency  of  character.  The  example  throws 
back  upon  him  the  consciousness  of  his  own  debasement, 
and  awakens  self-condemnation,  and  he  will  never  hold  com- 
munion with  the  rigidly  virtuous  for  virtue's  sake.  Such 
moral  repellency,  between  the  virtuous  and  the  vicious, 
evinces  in  both  an  ethical  personality ;  on  one  side,  a  will 
enslaved  to  the  gratification  of  sense,  and  on  the  other,  a 
will  free  in  its  loyalty  to  right,  but  in  both  a  character 
which  is  estimated  by  each,  and  between  which  there  can 
be  no  reciprocal  complacency. 

The  virtuous  man  on  the  other  hand,  knows  that  his 


498  :rHE    REASON    IN    ITS    LAW. 

virtue  lies  in  the  valor  with  which  he  beats  down  all  the 
contending  appetites  of  the  sense,  and  subjects  every  end  to 
the  ultimate  claim  of  his  own  true  dignity.     In  the  society 
of  the  virtuous,  there  is  a  reverential  respect  of  each  for 
all ;  and,  while  each  possesses  an  inward  self-approbatioi\ 
there  is  also  mutual  complacency  which  can  be  found  in 
nothing  but  the  possession  of  a  virtuous   ethical  character 
and  the  recognition  of  the  same  character  in  others.     No 
other  than  a  free  ethical  person  can  love  the  virtuous  for  his 
worthiness'  sake;  and  none  but  the  ethically  good,  in  their 
free  personality  can  be  loved  by  the  virtuous.     I  may  value 
as  of  such  a  pi^ice,  that  which  I  may  use  for  my  happiness 
or  interest;  but  there  is  no  attaining  to  the  complacency  of 
personal  communion  in  this,  for  the  means  T  use  is  in  that 
very  use  made  thing  and  not  person.     A  good,  as  a  means 
to  an  end,  is  wholly  a  different  good  in  kind  from  that  which, 
as  ultimate  end,  must  be  the  supreme  good.     If  another  per- 
son is  good  only  as  means  to  end  ;  if  the  absolute  Deity  is 
so  held  as  good,  only  that  he  makes  a  heaven  of  happiness 
for  me,  then  to  me  he  is  at  once  made  a  thing  and  has  a- 
price,  and  not  a  dignity  which  is  above  and  beyond  all  bar- 
tering.    When  the  reciprocity  is  only  that  of  happiness,  and 
men  regard  each  other  only  as   each  is  subservient  to  the 
others' happiness ;  or  man  regards  God  as  only  the  maker 
and  dispenser  of  happiness,  and  God  regards  His  creatures 
only  as  they  minister  to  Him  in  haiDpiness  ;  then  is  it  impos 
sible  that  the  ethical  love  of  complacency  should  subsist 
between  them.     A  want  and  not  a  worthiness  is  thus  put  as 
end,  and  that  each  were  reciprocally  useful  to  each,  as  joint 
stock  co-partners  in  happiness  to  be  distributed  among  them 
all,  and  valued  by  each  only  in  proportion  to  his  own  share, 


PACTS     IX    FINITE    PERSONALITY.  409 

would  be  the  only  point  of  congeniality  between  them,  and 
each  would  be  to  others,  a  thing  to  be  used ;  a  means  to  be 
valued  for  what  it  could  get ;  and  not  a  person,  who  had 
rights  in  his  own  intrinsic  worthiness,  which  must  be  ethi- 
cally respected  by  all.  Reciprocal  complacency  requires  the 
communion  of  free  personality — like  with  like  ethically — ■ 
their  rights  mutually  respected,  and  their  imperatives  indi- 
vidually fulfilled;  not  each  a  means  to  the  others'  happiness, 
but  each  complacent  in  the  others'  worthiness. 

That  we  have  such  facts  of  complacent  communion,  and 
that  every  man  is  conscious  of  a  capacity  for  an  imperative 
to  such  communion,  is  the  clear  recognition  of  his  own  and 
others'  free  ethical  personality. 

(4.)  Capacity  to  resist  all  the  conditions  of  7iature. 
The  cravings  of  a  sensory  are  wholly  conditioned  in  nature. 
The  cravings  must  be  as  nature  develops,  and  there  is  no 
alternative  to  what  nature  imposes.  The  whole  sentient  life, 
constitutional  temperament,  physiological  propensity  and 
native  susceptibility,  is  bound  in  cause  and  effect,  and  vfQve 
there  nothing  but  desire  for  happiness,  there  would  be  no 
alternative  to  nature's  conditions  in  the  experience.  A  dic- 
tate of  prudence,  settled  by  the  most  comprehensive  gener- 
alization, is  as  truly  appetitive  as  any  single  want  in  its  sud- 
den excitement.  The  conditions  of  nature  will  determine 
that  the  prudent  judgment  shall  or  shall  not  be  concluded, 
and  gratification  is  sought  accordingly.  All  action  from  a 
want  is  as  completely  one  with  nature  as  the  flowing  and 
ebbing  of  the  tides  or  the  revolving  of  the  planets.  Sen- 
tient life  must  ever  more  flow  in  the  current  of  nature's  con- 
ditions, and  can  possibly  find  or  admit  within  it  no  spring  to 
action  as  alternative  to  nature. 


600  THE    EEASON    IN    ITS    LAW. 

When,  therefore,  we  recognize  any  facts  which  evince  a 
capacity  to  turn  and  stem  the  stream  of  nature's  conditioned 
sequences,  it  is  quite  manifest  that  in  them  we  recognize  an 
ethical  personaUty  m  Uberty.  It  is  no  more  manifest,  when 
the  tempest-tossed  ship  rides  out  the  storm  and  maintains  her 
steady  and  safe  position  against  the  elements,  that  her  anchor 
holds  on  to  that  which  stands  beyond  the  contending  billows ; 
than  that  when  the  good  will  holds  firm  against  all  the  crav- 
ings of  appetite,  it  has  its  end  above  all  that  a  sensory  may 
contain.  To  play  off  one  appetite  against  another,  to  stifle 
one  want  in  the  stronger  craving  of  another,  to  hold  each 
clamorous  passion  in  subjection  by  the  prudential  considerar 
tion  of  the  greatest  gratification  of  all,  is  still  to  be  only  in 
nature.  It  is  merely  using  one  part  of  nature  as  a  defense 
against  another  part,  or  the  whole  of  nature  against  any 
particular  interference.  But,  when  all  of  sentient  nature  is 
setting  in  one  direction,  and  an  inner  witness  of  what  is  due 
to  the  worthiness  of  an  ethical  character  puts  its  imperative 
prohibition  to  the  attainment  of  any  such  end  ;  then,  is  the 
ethical  end  wholly  out  from  the  sentient  end,  and  the  ethical 
right  gives  a  spring  to  control  the  sentient  want,  and  an 
alternative  is  afforded  to  nature's  conditions  by  putting  a 
sovereignty  over  nature,  and  giving  to  sentient  want  a  mas- 
ter that  in  his  own  right  may  subject  and  control  it  as  a 
whole  and  forever.  Should  it  be  said,  after  all  the  fair 
appearance  there  may  still  be  some  secret  want  or  pruden- 
tial consideration,  that  is  controlling  the  whole  sentient 
nature  beside,  as  an  o'ermastering  craving ;  we  should  then 
at  once  appeal  to  any  man's  own  consciousness  of  either 
what  iSy  or  of  what  oiight  to  be,  in  liis  own  case;  and  such 


PACTS    IN    FINITE    PERSONALITF.  501 

facts  of  consciousness  are  at  once  the  recognition  of  the 
ethical  personality. 

Thus,  you  have  yourself  been  thrown  into  circumstances, 
where  all  the  inclinations  and  tendencies  of  sentient  nature 
were  in  one  direction,  and  appetite  and  example  and  oppor- 
tunity were  all  in  combined  impulse  towards  gratification. 
But  there  sprang  up  the  irrepressible  witnessing  within — I 
ought  to  resist,  and  turn  back  this  whole  tide  of  appetitive 
desire,  and  stand  firmly  uncompliant.  And  here  the  ques- 
tion is — Whence  this  ought  ?  Surely  not  from  any  portion 
of  the  sentient  nature ;  not  from  any  a3sthetic  or  scientific 
interest ;  it  is  the  claim  of  some  ethical  sovereignty,  as  imper- 
ative over  appetite  and  taste  and  philosophy,  and  holds  the 
agreeable,  the  beautiful  and  the  true  in  science,  subordinate 
to  the  good  and  the  right  in  morals.  Nothing  can  possibly 
awaken  this  conviction  of  obligation  but  the  inner  witnessing 
of  a  right,  and  never  the  mere  craving  of  a  want.  All  of 
appetitive  want  may  thus  be  combined,  and  yet  the  counter 
conviction  may  come  that  I  ought^  and  therefore  that  I  am 
able  even  when  I  do  not,  to  resist  every  impulse  of  the  sense, 
and  stand  unswayed  by  all  the  promptings  of  constitutional 
desire.  The  consideration  of  time,  how  long  such  subjec- 
tion of  gratification  shall  be  maintained,  has  no  possible 
relevancy ;  the  end  of  ethical  worthiness  is  supreme  for  all 
possible  period.  Nor,  has  the  consideration  of  the  degree 
of  trial  and  sacrifice  any  pertinence ;  the  highest  possible 
Busceptibility  of  a  sentient  nature  is  still  to  succumb  to 
the  worth  of  ethical  character.  All  that  a  sensory  in  its 
keenest  craving  and  most  passionate  want  can  sacrifice 
may  be  demanded  in  the  right  and  for  the  rational  end 
of  the  spiritual  excellency;    and  thus  an   imperative  may 


502  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    LAW 

fix  an  obligation  to  resist  nature,  great  as  the  trial  may 
be  and  long  as  it  may  endure.  The  firm  will,  in  its  ethical 
integrity,  is  thus  capacity  for  standing  against  nature  in  all 
her  force.  Let  her  do  her  utmost,  and  I  may  still  be  firm 
and  unyielding ;  let  me  be  crushed  beneath  her  iron  condi- 
tions through  all  my  sentient  being,  and  I  may  still  say,  in 
obedience  to  the  end  of  my  own  worthiness,  that  I  (vill  go 
down  to  death  in  the  integrity  and  loyalty  of  my  good  will 
and  pure  conscience. 

Even  m  the  degradation  of  the  spirit  to  the  lowest 
depravity,  and  the  submerging  of  all  imperative  beneath  the 
raging  tide  of  passionate  gratification,  the  man  is  still  com- 
pelled to  the  conviction,  that  he  has  put  himself  under  the 
domination  of  nature  in  the  flesh  by  his  own  consent,  and  that 
this  degradation  is  not  misfortune  but  guilt,  and  that  he 
ought  to  break  the  chain  of  his  sensuality  at  once,  and  come 
out  from  his  foul  and  noisome  prison-house,  and  stand  up  in 
manly  valor  and  virtue,  with  the  free  and  the  good.  He  is 
conscious  that  while  his  appetites  are  of  nature,  there  is  a 
nobler  part  of  his  being  which  is  not  bound  in  the  conditions 
of  nature.  He  can  take  hold  of  what  is  beyond  all  of 
nature's  conditions,  and  stand  thereby  in  steadfast  resist- 
ance to  every  thing  which  would  deo^rade  and  enslave  him, 
and  for  the  sake  of  his  dignity  trample  on  all  of  happiness 
w^hich  collides  with  duty.  This  the  virtuous  man  knows  as 
achieved  in  his  righteous  integrity;  this  the  vicious  man 
knows  as  claimed  in  his  conscious  responsibility;  and  in  this 
is  the  full  recognition  of  a  free  ethical  personality,  whose 
right  is  above  all  the  ends  which  any  conditions  in  nature 
may  propose. 

Here  are  now  sufficient  facts  for  the  evincing:  of  a  uni 


FACTS    IN    FINITE    PERSONALITY.  .503 

versal  recognition  of  an  ethical  personality  in  humanity,  and 
this  prepares  us  for  the  remaining  consideration  in  the  induc- 
tion of  ethical  facts,  viz. : 

Secondly. — That  we  make  this  ethical  personality  the 
only  compass,  by  which  to  comprehend  all  the  facts  that  are 
moral  in  humanity.  The  successive  events  in  the  flowing 
stream  of  nature  around  us,  as  the  seasons,  the  weather,  the 
alternations  of  day  and  night,  the  growth  and  decay  of 
vegetation,  etc.,  how  much  soever  they  may  affect  us  favor- 
ably or  unfavorably,  we  never  call  ours  as  if  we  had  any 
responsibility  in  originating  them.  We  always  refer  them 
to  an  agency  quite  above  and  beyond  all  that  is  human.  The 
changing  events  in  the  physical  world  affect  mankind,  but 
are  never  brought  within  the  compass  of  humanity,  as  if 
they  belonged  to  it,  or  were  at  all  comprehended  in  it. 

So  also  with  the  changing  wants  and  craving  appetites  of 
our  sensitive  nature.  We  may  call  these  ours  inasmuch  as 
they  come  within  the  unity  of  self-consciousness,  and  take 
place  on  the  field  of  our  experience ;  yet  we  never  appropri- 
ate them  to  our  personality  and  consider  them  as  compre- 
hended within  our  agency.  They  are  the  affections  which 
nature  within  and  around  us  works  upon  us,  in  which  we 
are  passive,  and  not  that  we  in  any  sense  originate  them. 
That  I  am  cold,  or  hungry,  or  sleepy,  and  desire  to  gratify 
or  relieve  these  craving  wants  is  nature's  work  on  the  field 
of  my  sensibility,  and  not  my  work,  as  originating  in  my 
purpose,  and  carried  out  according  to  my  in'^ention.  I 
hold  myself  to  be  wholly  irresponsible  thei-efor,  except  as  in 
some  act  of  liberty,  I  excite  or  control  the  executive  acts 
which  gratify  them.  The  promptings  of  self-love,  though 
generalized  to  the  broadest  dictates  of  prudence  or  kind' 


604  THE     REASON    IN     ITS    LAW. 

ness,  are  wholly  pathological  and  bound  in  the  necessity  of 
nature's  conditions.  The  brute  and  the  man,  as  animal 
solely,  move  in  the  same  lines  of  conditioned  appetite,  and 
take  or  leave  the  objects  of  gratification  according  to  the 
craving  want,  or  as  controlled  by  the  teachings  of  experi- 
ence. We  never  comprehend  such  facts  in  the  compass  of 
any  responsible  personality. 

Moreover,  we  create  our  own  forms  of  beauty,  or  con- 
struct our  own  pure  diagrams  in  geometry,  or  connect  our 
primitive  conceptions  in  a  philosophical  system,  and  we  may 
call  these  productions  of  art  and  science  ours,  in  the  accep- 
tation that  they  are  the  works  of  our  rational  genius.  We 
comprehend  them  within  the  compass  of  an  aesthetic  or 
scientific  personahty  in  humanity ;  but  inasmuch  as  all  such 
products  are  not  within  the  region  of  spiritual  rights  and 
behests,  we  shall  never  here  recognize  the  claims  and  imper- 
atives of  moral  obligation  and  responsibility,  nor  attempt  to 
comprehend  the  beauty  of  art  nor  the  truth  of  science  in  an 
ethical  personality. 

But,  there  are  facts,  which  evince  that  man  is  in  himself 
an  ethical  whole ;  a  moral  world ;  self-separated  from  all 
other  things  and  persons.  As  each  man  has  his  own,  so  hu- 
manity in  the  aggregate  becomes  a  comprehensive  total  as 
human  responsibility  and  obhgation.  Here  is  excluded  all 
the  facts  of  a  merely  sentient  existence,  and  all  of  taste  and 
science,  inasmuch  as  none  of  these  are  bound  up  in  the  im- 
peratives which  originate  in  what  is  due  to  the  spiritual  and 
immortal  in  humanity. 

Every  man's  virtues  and  vices  are  his  own,  in  a  meaning 
wholly  other  than  that  his  appetites  are  his  own  ;•  and 
wholly  other  than  that  his  productions  in  the  fine  arts,  or  his 


i 


FACTS    IN    FINITE    PEESONALITY.  605. 

attainments  in  science,  are  his  own.  They  are  his,  in  that 
they  are  wholly  comprehended  in  himself;  and  their  origi- 
nation, and  final  intent  are  compassed  in  his  ethical  person- 
aUty.  That  voluptuous  indulgence,  which  has  not  merely 
brought  pain  and  loss  from  its  imj)rudence,  but  far  more  has 
induced  conscious  debasement  and  remorse,  must  the  guilty 
man  say,  is  all  my  own  in  its  entire  moral  and  responsible 
being.  That  selfish  counsel  given  to  another ;  that  decep- 
tive and  ensnaring  influence ;  that  tempting  solicitation  ; 
that  dishonest  inteittion  and  matured  plan  of  wrong-doing  ; 
that  perverse  and  perpetuated  immoral  habit ;  that  maUcious 
slander,  or  profane  speech,  or  licentious  publication ;  that 
unholy  deed,  and  that  wicked  lie ;  all  are  in  my  own  con- 
sciousness confined  to  my  personality ;  and  it  were  quite 
vain  for  me  to  attempt  to  shrink  from  a  full  and  final  ac- 
count. 

So  also,  on  the  other  hand,  that  firm  purpose  and  decided 
adherence  to  principle ;  that  disregard  of  all  allurement  and 
threatening  in  the  line  of  duty ;  that  good  counsel  on  vir- 
tue's side  ;  that  cheerful  sacrifice  of  pleasure  for  the  right ; 
all  have  had  their  origin  in  my  personality ;  and  are  deeds, 
for  which  none  but  myself  can  be  conscious  of  a  complacent 
self  approbation.  They  have  dignified  and  adorned  my  char- 
acter, and  in  them  no  other  personality  can  participate. 
These  deeds  of  vice  or  of  virtue  have  gone  out  and  mingled 
with  the  ficts  of  nature,  and  become  linked  into  the  condi- 
tioned series  of  physical  causes  and  effects,  and  spread 
abroad  their  baneful  or  beneficial  influences ;  but  they  did 
not  come  of  nature,  and  can  not  be  transferred  from  myself 
to  any  of  the  necessities  in  nature.  They  must  forerer 
stand  to  my  account,  and  come  back  to  me  for  their  origin 

22 


506  THE    EEASON    IN    ITS    LAW. 

and  final  design.  And  thus  with  every  man  ;  he  separates 
all  that  is  his  from  all  that  is  nature's  or  another  person's, 
and  thus  comprehends  his  own  in  himself,  and  as  proper  per 
son  with  his  own  deeds  stands  self-isolated  from  all  else 
and  neither  nature,  nor  his  fellows,  can  be  made  to  share  in 
his  responsibilities.  What  nature  has  wrought  within  him 
or  thrown  upon  him  and  what  another  person  as  mentor  or 
tempter  has  done,  he  puts  entirely  distinct  from  his  own 
asrencv,  and  thus  takes  his  own,  and  stands  forever  and  com- 
pletely  absolved  from  all  that  is  not  his  own. 

In  this,  and  in  this  only,  is  the  comprehension  of  human 
morality.  Every  man  owns  as  his,  and  at  his  responsibility, 
that  which  has  origin  and  direction  from  his  ethical  person- 
ality ;  and  he  can  be  made  to  own  as  his  no  other  events  be- 
side. His  personality  in  liberty  is  the  only  compass  by 
which  to  mclude  his  responsibihty  ;  and  the  morality  of  the 
human  race  can  only  be  comprehended  in  that  which  is  ethi- 
cal personality  as  habitant  in  humanity.  Sentient  craving  is 
nothing  but  conditioned  nature  working  in  man ;  beauty  and 
truth  have  an  interest  above  appetite,  but  can  not  give  im- 
peratives nor  awaken  responsibihties ;  the  end  of  his  own 
worthiness  and  dignity,  as  moral  character,  gives  the  inward 
witness  by  which  he  knows  himself  and  his  own. 

And  now,  in  conclusion  we  say,  that  all  the  facts  under 
all  the  foregoing  heads  are  fully  held  in  colligation  by  this 
invariable  law  of  comprehension.  On  the  whole  field  of  hu- 
manity, we  never  comprehend  any  portion  of  its  facts  in 
their  origination  and  consummation,  except  as  we  bring 
them  completely  within  the  compass  of  a  fi*ee  personality, 
Whatever  in  human  experience  is  conditioned  in  material 
nature,  or  in  sentient  nature,  we  never  attempt  to  compre- 


PACTS    IX    AN-    ABSOLUTE    PERSONALITY,    bOI 

hend,  except  as  we  ascend  to  the  comprehension  of  natui'e 
itself.  It  is  found  in  human  experience,  only  as  this  is  sub- 
jected to  necessity ;  and  hence  its  comprehension  if  attained 
at  all,  must  be  brought  within  the  compass  of  a  personality, 
which  is  sovereign  author  of  humanity  itself.  In  this  sec- 
tion of  comprehended  facts  in  human  experience^  we  have  our 
invariable  hypothetical  law ;  that  we  comprehend  nothing, 
which  we  may  not  bring  within  the  compass  of  a  personality 
in  liberty.  We  have  yet  to  carry  out  the  same  hypothesis 
over  the  facts  in  a  comprehension  of  nature  itself,  and  this 
we  will  effect  in  the  next  section. 


SECTION    II. 

THE    FACTS     OF    A    COMPREHENDING     REASON    WHICH     COMB 
WITHIN    THE    COMPASS     OF    AN    ABSOLUTE    PERSONALITY. 

In  the  previous  section  we  determined  the  fact  of  a  uni- 
versal recognition  of  a  free  pei'sonality  in  humanity,  and  that 
all  comprehension  of  the  products  of  humanity  was  wholly 
by  the  compass  of  this  free  personality.  We  rise  from  na- 
ture, and  find  that  which  is  not  conditioned  in  nature,  and 
comprehend  this  in  an  author  and  designer.  The  artist  is 
rational  and  free  person,  in  that  the  love  of  the  beautiful  is 
spring  for  an  alternative  agency  against  all  the  appetitive 
wants  of  sentient  nature,  and  thereby  all  the  productions  of 
an  artistic  taste  are  comprehended  in  the  compass  of  the 
aesthetic  personality  in  humanity.  The  philosopher  is  ra- 
tional and  free  person,  in  that  the  love  of  the  true  is  spring 
for  an  alternative   agency  against   all   craving   want,  and 


508  THE    REASON    II^"    ITS    LAW. 

thereby  all  the  attainments  in  science  are  comprehended  in 
the  compass  of  the  philosophic  personality  in  humanity. 
The  moral  agent  is  rational  and  free  person,  in  that  an  ethi- 
cal imperative  is  spring  for  an  alternative  action  to  all  sen- 
tient want  and  all  aesthetic  and  scientific  interest,  and  thereby 
all  moral  character  and  responsibility  are  comprehended  in 
the  compass  of  the  ethical  personality  in  humanity.  A  com- 
prehending reason  thus  actually  comprehends  all  the  products 
of  humanity,  aesthetic,  scientific  and  moral,  as  facts  in  human 
experience,  solely  by  the  compass  of  a  recognized  free  per- 
sonality. 

It  is  much  to  have  thus  found  that  the  facts  of  compre- 
hension, so  far  as  they  lie  among  the  products  of  humanity, 
are  all  in  complete  and  perpetual  colligation  by  this  law  of 
a  personality  in  liberty.  We  never  comprehend  within  the 
products  of  humanity  any  events,  which  we  do  not  at  the 
same  time  recognize  as  within  the  compass  of  a  free  human 
personality.  Whatever  is  bound  in  the  conditions  of  nature 
though  appearing  on  the  ground  of  human  experience  and 
coming  within  the  field  of  human  consciousness,  is  at  once 
attributed  to  nature  and  not  comprehended  as  within  that 
world  of  events  Avhich  humanity  originates,  and  for  which  it 
must  stand  accountable. 

But,  therefore,  we  have  the  facts  of  comprehension  only 
amid  the  products  of  humanity.  Each  person  is  compass 
by  which  we  comprehend  all  that  is  his;  and  all  persons 
constitute  all  of  humanity,  and  in  the  aggregate  compass  by 
which  we  comprehend  all  the  creations  of  man ;  and  if  any 
facts  should  disclose  themselves  as  the  product  of  angelic 
agency,  suoh  events  would  in  the  same  manner  be  compre- 
hended within  the  compass  of  angelic  personality.     In  this 


FACTS    IN    AN    ABSOLUTE    PEESONALITT.    509 

way,  however,  we  could  attain  to  but  a  very  partial  induc- 
tion of  the  facts  of  a  comprehending  agency.  Very  few  of 
the  events  in  nature  can  be  considered  as  the  product  of 
either  human  or  angeUc  person aU ties.  Take  away  from  the 
series  of  conditioned  causes  and  effects  in  nature  all  the 
events  which  have  found  their  origin  in  humanity  and  may 
be  comprehended  within  the  compass  of  human  personali- 
ties, and  though  such  subtraction  would  give  abundant 
manifestation  that  nature  had  been  much  modified  and 
indeed  augmented  in  the  stream  of  her  flowing  sequences 
by  man  yet  would  that  which  was  taken  bear  but  a  very 
small  proj)ortion  to  that  which  would  still  remain.  These 
modifications  of  material  nature  would  not  at  all  reach  to  its 
primitive  substantial  space-filling  force.  The  essence  of 
nature  would  be  found  to  be  neither  increased  nor  dimin- 
ished, inasmuch  as  the  products  of  man's  creation  are  never 
any  distinguishable  physical  forces,  which  may  fill  space  with 
new  substances  or  superinduce  upon  existing  matter  new 
organizations. 

We  have,  therefore,  occasion  for  many  facts  of  a  com- 
prehending agency  in  the  origination  and  consummation  of 
events  m  nature,  which  can  by  no  means  be  brought  within 
the  compass  of  any  human  personality.  Indeed,  our  grand 
object  is  to  determine  the  law  of  a  comprehending  reason  in 
veference  to  nature  herself,  and  we  have  only  dwelt  upon 
the  facts  of  a  comprehending  reason  within  the  products  of 
humanity,  in  order  to  show  that  as  the  actual  law  is  here 
also  the  same,  we  might  thereby  have  the  more  abundant 
confirmation,  that  this  one  hypothesis  of  a  personality  in 
liberty  holds  all  facts  of  a  comprehending  agency  every 
where  within  its  colligation.     We  shall  make  it  our  object  in 


510  THE    REASON    IN    ITS     LAW. 

this  section  to  show  that  all  comprehension  of  nature  has 
this  one  law,  the  recognized  compass  of  a  free  personality, 
as  the  author  and  finisher  of  all  that  is  thus  comprehended ; 
and  wherever  such  encompassing  personality  is  recognized, 
there  do  we  at  once  comprehend  all  the  events  in  him. 
Since  the  events  are  of  nature,  and  not  the  product  of  any 
finite  personality,  it  follows  that  we  must  take  it  for  oui* 
hypothesis  that  all  such  comprehension  of  events  must  stand 
within  the  compass  of  an  absolute  personality.  We  shall, 
therefore,  find  it  convenient  to  pursue  this  order  of  induc- 
tion— Flrst^  to  induce  such  facts  as  show  a  universal  recog- 
nition of  an  absolute  personality  above  nature  ;  and  Secondly, 
to  hiduce  such  facts  of  a  comprehending  reason  for  nature, 
as  shall  evince  that  all  operation  of  comprehending  nature  is 
by  the  law  of  this  absolute  personality.  In  this  last  division, 
inasmuch  as  we  have  both  a  physical  and  an  ethical  system 
as  universal,  it  will  be  necessary  to  have  this  sub-division  of 
facts  for  the  law  of  comprehension, j^r6*^  in  the  physical,  and 
secondly  in  the  ethical  universal  system. 

1.  Facts  evincive  of  a  universal  recognition  of  an  Abso- 
lute Personality. — There  are  many  facts  which  show  that 
the  human  mind  readily  recognizes  a  personal  author  and 
governor  of  nature,  and  it  is  only  from  the  influence  of  per- 
verted speculation  that  such  recognition  comes  to  be  dis- 
carded. Humanity  is  not  Atheistic  except  as  deluded.  The 
sonviction  that  there  is  a  personal  God  above  and  Lord  of 
nature,  would  be  perpetual  and  universal  except  for  the 
paralogism  induced  in  the  antinomy  of  the  connections  of 
tiie  understanding  and  the  comprehension  of  the  reason,  of 
which  more  notice  will  soon  be  taken.  This  is  not  the  place 
for  an  ontological  argument  demonstrative  of  the  actual 


PACTS    IN     AX    ABSOLUTE    P  E  R  S  O  N  A  L  I  T  T  .    511 

existence  of  a  personal  Deity ;  we  seek  now  only  to  estab- 
lish this  conclusion,  that  the  human  mind  readily  recognizes 
such  a  being,  and  that  the  conviction  is  not  discarded  except 
through  a  process  of  speculation  which  may  be  easily  exposed 
in  the  very  sources  of  its  fallacy. 

(1.)  The  ready  assent  to  the  fact  of  final  causes  in 
N'ature. — The  common  and  most  satisfactory  basis  of 
Natural  Theology  is  the  U!iiversal  conviction  of  final  causes 
in  nature.  The  evidences  of  adaptation  to  ends  are  so  nu- 
merous and  so  prominent,  that  no  observing  mind  fails  to  be 
impressed  with  the  conviction,  that  there  has  been  an  intel- 
ligent design  in  such  adaptations.  The  argument,  accumu- 
lative with  every  fact  of  adaptation,  is  at  first  satisfactory 
and  convincing  to  every  apprehending  mind.  It  is  when  we 
begin  to  speculate  upon  the  process  of  proof,  and  examine 
the  conclusiveness  of  such  argumentation,  that  we  lose  the 
force  of  this  first  conviction  and  may  pass  through  all  grades 
of  skepticism  to  a  confirmed  infidelity.  The  speculation 
does  not  at  all  weaken  the  evidence  of  adaptation  to  ends  in 
nature,  but  it  obscures  the  conviction  that  such  facts  may 
be  made  demonstrative  of  a  personal  Deity.  When  we 
examine  these  connected  adaptations  more  closely,  we  find 
them  all  conditioned  in  their  sequences,  and  the  succeeding 
to  be  necessitated  by  the  preceding  and  the  on-going  of 
nature  a  perj^etual  series  of  link  in  link  without  alternative. 
The  means  to  an  end  now  future  were  themselves  end  to  be 
reached  by  former  means,  and  how  are  we  to  leap  in  our 
conclusions,  from  this  linked  necessity  every  way  shutting 
us  within  its  fixed  connections  to  some  independent  and  free 
personality  as  an  original  designer  ? 

Instead  of  the  phenomenal  adaptations  connected  in  their 


612  THE    REASON    IN     ITS    LAW. 

conditioning  causes,  we  may  assume  tiat  an  intellectual 
attribute  which  we  call  intent  or  design.,  appears  as  element 
in  this  combination  ;  and  we  may  then  take  that  intellectual 
element  as  the  fact  from  which  to  conclude  upon  an  absolute 
and  free  maker  and  designer  of  all  things.  But  we  shall 
still  have  the  same  endless  chain  of  conditioned  sequences. 
There  is  d'esign,  as  intellectual  element,  in  the  arranged 
wires  of  the  carding-machine,  and  this  may  be  deemed  suffi- 
cient proof  for  an  intelligent  designer.  But  when  I  see  that 
busy  little  iron  hand,  with  astonishing  precision,  bending 
and  cutting  the  wire  and  puncturing  the  leather  and  exactly 
inserting  the  card-teeth,  I  find  here  the  intellectual  element 
higher  up  in-  the  development  of  sequences  and  conditioning 
in  necessity  what  is  below  it.  IIow  shall  I  leap  from  the 
conditioned  mechanism  to  the  free  personality.  The  man 
makes  the  iron  hand  that  makes  the  card ;  but  that  man 
again  is  an  adaptation  as  means  to  such  an  end,  and  in  his 
wants  and  interests  and  circumstances  as  much  conditioned, 
it  may  be,  to  make  card-teeth  machines,  as  such  machines 
are  to  make  cards.  In  the  man  then  is  now  found  the  intel- 
lectual element  conditioning  all  that  follows.  But  I  need  a 
designer  adapting  the  man  to  his  sequences,  as  much  as  in 
the  former  case  I  needed  the  man  adapting  the  machine  to 
set  card-teeth ;  and  then,  when  I  find  the  designer  of  the 
man  in  his  adaptations,  I  shall  find  the  intellectual  element 
there,  and  yet  shall  be  no  nearer  to  a  demonstration  of  an 
origin  of  all  design  in  a  free  personality  than  when  I  began 
with  this  design  in  the  arranged  wires  of  the  carding- 
machine.  It  is  ever  design  apprehended  only  in  some  already 
conditioned  connection,  and  I  can  not  leap  from  co  >ditioned 
result  to  a  free  originating  personality. 


FACTS    IN    AN     ABSOLUTE    PERSONALITY.    613 

It  is  thus  with  every  form  of  argumentation  on  the  basis 
of  final  causes.  That  which  seemed  so  conclusive  at  first, 
when  speculatively  examined  fails  utterly  to  reach  any  con- 
clusion. The  regressus  is  ever  with  an  open  backward  way, 
and  when  pushed,  the  understanding  must  perpetually  tread 
back  from  one  conditioned  to  a  higher  condition,  and  never 
reach  its  origin  in  an  unconditioned.  It  is  fhus  that  all 
teleological  proof  of  the  existence  of  a  personal  Deity  must 
fail  of  a  demonstration,  because  it  is  impossible  that  the  pro- 
cess should  rest  in  other  than  an  arbitrary  conclusion.  The 
personal  designer  is  surreptitiously  assumed  because  we 
rationally  need  him,  but  not  at  all  because  we  logically  find 
him.  But,  when  we  now  know  the  clear  distinction  between 
a  connecting  understanding  and  a  comprehending  reason, 
we  can  at  once  free  ourselves  from  all  the  delusion  and  par- 
alogism of  such  speculation.  Reason  demands  an  absolute 
and  can  rest  in  nothing  else,  for  it  can  possibly  comprehend 
nothing  except  in  this  compass  of  a  free  personaUty ;  but 
an  understanding  forbids  all  such  origination,  and  can  possi- 
bly conclude  in  connected  judgments  only  through  the 
tnedium  of  perpetually  underlying  and  interlinking  condi- 
tions. The  very  idea  of  a  personality  in  liberty  is  an  absur- 
dity to  the  discursive  faculty,  and  to  which  the  conception 
of  a  deity  can  possibly  be  none  other  than  the  notion  of  a 
substance  filling  all  space,  and  in  its  causality  working 
through  all  time,  and  connecting  within  itself  all  the  condi- 
tioned phenomenal  changes  in  nature.  The  reaching  forth 
of  the  comprehending  reason,  and  the  short-coming  of  the 
connecting  understanding  utterly  forbid  that  we  should  put 
the  two  faculties  at  work  together,  or  one  for  the  other,  and 
suppose  that  their  results  may  be  brought  concentric  with 

22* 


514  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    LAW. 

each  other  in  the  same  sphere.     If  we  would  attain  to  the 
personal  Deity  of  a  comprehending  reason,  w^e  must  not 
delude  ourselves  with  the  folly,  that  such  can  be  measured 
in  the  connections  of  a  discursive  understanding.     The  dis- 
cursive faculty  can  not  move  at  all  without  its  media  of  sub- 
stance and  cause,  and  when  it  thus  moves  it  must  be  from  con- 
dition to  conditioned;  how  then  may  it  assume  to  determine 
any  thing  about  the  originating  of  space-filling  substances 
and  time-abiding  causes  ?     It  is  quite  as  incompetent  to  deny 
any  thing  about  free  personalities  as  to  prove  any  thing.     It 
can  not  say  how  substance  and  cause  may  begin  to  be,  but 
as  little  can  it  say  that  they  may  not  begin,  and  have  their 
origin  in  a  free  personality.     It  is  wholly  impertinent  to  this 
faculty,  that  it  should  meddle  at  all  in  the  questions  of  final 
causes  and  free  originations,  and  ethical  personalities.     The 
sense  might  as  well  attempt  to  perceive  the  essential  force 
which  connects  the  phenomenal  universe.     Neither  is  com- 
petent to  affirm  or  deny  beyond  its  own  legitimate  jirovince. 
We  may  at  once  therefore,  utterly  disregard  all  these  de- 
lusive speculations  of  a  discursive  judgment ;    and  if  they 
are  found  wholly  incompetent  to  comprehend  the  adaptations 
in  nature,  by  the  compass  of  a  personal  Deity,  so  also  are 
they  wholly  incompetent  to  exclude  the  possibihty  of  such 
comprehension,  and  deny  the  actual  being  of  a  personal  God 
of  nature.     The  ontological  demonstration  may  hereafter 
come  in  its  proper  place,  but  enough  is  here  given  to  sho^y 
that  the  conviction  of  final  causes  in  nature  should  not  be  at 
all   weakened   or    modified   from    any   speculations   which 
are  manifestly  so  preposterous.     And  yet,  all  such  recogni- 
tion of  final  causes   is,    in  the   fact  itself,    the   recognition 
of  a  free  personality  above  nature.     A  final  end  to  be  at- 


{ 


FACTS    IN    AN    ABSOLUTE    PERSONALITY.    515 

tained  in  and  by  nature  involves  an  overruling  and  a  using 
of  nature  for  some  personal  intent,  and  in  that  mind,  the 
recognition  of  a  personality  independent  of  and  absolute 
over  nature.  To  such  a  mind  "the  heavens  declare  the 
glory  of  God  and  the  firmament  showeth  forth  his  power." 
"  The  invisible  things  of  him  from  the  creation  of  the  world 
are  clearly  seen,  being  understood  by  the  things  that  are 
made,  even  his  eternal  power  and  Godhead." 

(2.)  The  recognition  of  miraculous  interpositions  in 
nature. — It  is  not  contrary  to,  but  quite  in  accordance  with 
the  convictions  of  mankind  generally,  that  there  should  be 
miraculous  interpositions.  All  skepticism  in  reference  to  the 
competency  of  human  testimony  for  the  proof  of  miracles  is, 
as  in  the  case  of  final  causes,  a  result  of  delusive  specula- 
tions. Deny  that  philosophy  can  reach  beyond  experience 
and  generalizations  from  experience,  and  we  shall  then  have 
nothing  but  the  connections  of  an  understanding,  and  can 
not  conceive  where  a  miracle  should  come  from.  No  amount 
of  human  testimony  can  rise  to  as  high  a  source  of  convic- 
tion against  the  uniformity  of  nature  and  for  the  miraculous 
interposition,  as  is  given  in  universal  experience  against  the 
miracle  and  for  the  uniformity  of  nature.  The  very  basis 
of  all  philosophical  conviction  underlies  the  belief  of  the 
imiformity  of  nature ;  but  the  credibility  of  a  miracle  has 
only  testimony,  which  all  experience  shows  may  be  faUible. 
An  assent  to  the  fact  of  a  miracle,  therefore,  on  any  amount 
of  testimony  is  credulity,  and  a  philosopher  should  be 
wholly  above  it.  And,  surely,  if  we  keep  this  philosophy, 
there  is  no  alternative  to  this  skepticism  in  reference  to  all 
testimony  for  a  miracle.  That  a  Deity  is  assumed,  who  may 
control  nature  miraculously,  can  be  only  through  the  same 


616  THE    REASON    IN    ITS     lAW. 

credulity ;  for  all  science  is  wholly  within  the  generaliza- 
tions of  experience,  and  no  experience,  however  generalized 
can  reach  beyond  nature,  but  must  ever  run  up  and  down 
the  interminable  sequences  of  her  conditioned  connections. 

But  we  may  readily  pass  by  all  this  when  we  have 
learned  the  antinomy  of  the  two  operations  of  a  connecting 
understanding  and  a  comprehending  reason.  If  we  will  ad- 
mit nothing  but  the  logical  conclusions  of  a  discursive  con- 
nection, then  verily  are  we  shut  up  within  nature,  and  the 
testimony  of  such  as  might  rise  from  the  dead  could  not 
avail  to  carry  us  beyond  nature's  linked  successions.  But  il 
we  have  attained  the  complete  idea  of  a  comprehending  rea- 
son, then  nothing  forbids  that  we  should  readily  cherish  the 
common  conviction  of  miraculous  interpositions. 

Without  canvassing  the  testimony  for  the  validity  of  any 
specific  miracle,  in  this  place,  it  is  sufficient  that  we  show  a 
ground  in  philosophy  for  such  conviction  when  properly 
substantiated  by  testimony,  and  we  may  then  take  such 
common  recognition  of  the  fact  of  miraculous  interpositions 
as  involving  the  recognition  of  an  absolute  personality  above 
nature.  I  do  not  at  all  apprehend,  in  any  recognized 
miracle,  that  nature  has  violated  her  own  laws  of  connec- 
tion, and  that  any  distinguishable  forces  in  nature  have  of 
themselves  broken  away  from  their  fixed  order  of  develop- 
ment ;  for  this  would  not  merely  tran^end,  but  contradict 
he  laws  of  an  understanding.  I  conceive  of  a  new  event 
put  into  nature,  which  did  not  come  from  any  previous  con- 
ditions in  nature,  but  from  wholly  a  supernatural  source. 
Nor  is  this  new  event  such  as  might  originate  in  a  finite  per- 
sonality, as  when  by  human  volition  changes  are  made  in 
nature,  which  do  not  come  of  nature  but  of  our  free  person- 


FACTS    IX    AN    ABSOLUTE    PERSONALITY.    517 

ality.  The  new  event  has  its  source  ah  extra  from  all  na- 
ture's conditions,  and  is  also  such  a  counteraction  of  nature, 
as  evinces  a  power  superhuman  over  nature.  Opening  blind 
eyes,  and  unstopping  deaf  ears,  and  healing  the  sick,  and 
raising  the  dead,  and  controlling  the  elements,  and  thus  di- 
rectly overpowering  nature  in  her  own  causal  operations  by 
a  direct  counteracting  of  her  flowing  conditions ;  these  and 
such  like  events  alone  rise  to  what  we  mean  by  miraculous 
interpositions.  Nature  may  then  receive  these  new  events 
and  incorporate  them  within  her  own  conditions,  but  they 
began  to  be  in  nature  from  no  paternity  of  nature,  and  had 
their  genesis  wholly  from  a  superhuman  source. 

And  now  we  affirm  the  fact,  that  the  human  mind  read- 
ily admits  that  such  interpositions  have  occurred  in  nature, 
and  it  is  only  from  a  delusive  speculation  that  skepticism 
arises  while  a  complete  philosophy  sustains  such  conviction ; 
and  such  conviction  involves  the  recognition  of  an  absolute 
personality  ;  a  will  in  liberty;  unconditioned  by  nature  and 
having  a  sovereign  control  over  nature,  and  which  may 
make  new  thinors  or  annihilate  old  thinors  in  nature  at  his 

o  o 

pleasure.  It  is  not  nature  at  work  upon  herself,  nor  anomo 
lous  and  monstrous  originations  in  nature  ;  but  it  is  a  hand 
from  without  thrust  in  sovereignty  within,  and  modifying 
and  making  and  extinguishing  the  forces  of  nature  as  it 
pleases.  Such  conviction  can  not  be,  but  in  the  recognition 
of  an  absolute  and  free  personality. 

(3.)  The  order  of  nature^ s  formation^  as  given  in  Geo- 
logical Facts. — Here  we  meet  with  no  speculations  of  a  de- 
lusive philosophy  to  obscure  or  deny  the  facts  themselves, 
but  we  take  them  as  nature  has  left  her  own  record  of  what 
has  been  done  within  her  upon  her  own  successive  pages, 


518  THE    REASON     IN    ITS    LAW. 

aud  in  legible  characters  and  a  meaning  unmistakable.  The 
facts  to  which  we  here  refer,  and  would  present  in  the  most 
comprehensive  manner,  are  as  follows.  Repeated  convul- 
sions from  deep  subten-anean  forces  have  in  frequent  in- 
stances broken  through  tlie  solid  crust  of  the  earth's  sur- 
face, and  turned  out  the  edges  of  these  upheaved  strata  to 
our  view,  which  have  their  dip  of  a  greater  or  less  inclina- 
tion to  the  horizon,  according  to  circumstances.  These  ex- 
posed strata  are  the  leaves  of  nature  as  a  book,  and  contain 
the  memorials  of  past  historical  occurrences  through  a  long 
series  of  many  and  diversified  geological  epochs. 

In  the  reading  of  this  record  backward  from  the  present 
all  traces  of  man's  existence  on  the  earth  cease  to  appear, 
when  we  pass  the  accumulations  of  a  few  feet  of  soil  upon 
the  surface.  Comparatively  slight  modifications  of  the  allu- 
vial deposits,  or  more  violent  and  extensive  changes  of  dilu- 
vial action  which  yet  do  not  mark  any  deep  convulsion,  are 
alone  contemporaneous  with  the  history  of  man's  abode 
upon  the  earth. 

Passing  these  we  come  to  the  tertiary  formation,  and 
have  commingled  strata  of  sand^  clay  and  lime  of  a  thou- 
sand feet  in  thickness.  The  remains  of  animals  of  existing 
species  are  here  found  in  large  numbers,  and  yet  such  are 
constantly  diminishing  as  we  go  down,  until  in  the  lowest 
formation  of  this  series,  very  few  traces  of  the  existing 
forms  of  animal  Hfe  now  on  the  earth  there  appear,  while 
their  places  are  filled  by  strange  fossils  of  many  different 
and  now  wholly  extinct  species. 

The  secondary  formation  succeeds,  and  we  have  the 
chalk  beds  of  a  thousand  feet  depth  in  which  no  fossil  shell- 
fish and  only  one  animal  is  found  of  the  present  existing 


PACTS    IN     AN    ABSOLUTE    P  E  K  S  O  N  A  L  IT  Y  .    519 

types  of  sentient  being.  We  find  next  the  oolite  fo"mation 
of  half  a  mile  in  thickness,  deposited  by  subsidence  from 
rivers  and  seas  alternately,  and  in  this  we  lose  utterly  all 
traces  of  any  existing  species  of  animated  nature,  and 
among  other  new  forms  we  encounter  here  the  strange  and 
monstrous  saurian  remains.  The  new  red  sandstone  of  two 
thousand  feet  comes  next ;  and  this  followed  by  the  coal 
formations  of  many  thousand  feet  in  depth,  the  carbonized 
remains  of  the  immense  vegetable  productions  of  an  older 
world,  and  in  which  no  plant  of  present  forms  appears,  nor 
is  there  any  indication  that  any  fowl  then  existed  or  any  an- 
imal roamed  through  these  primeval  forests.  Here  are  in- 
terposed, between  the  coal-strata,  limestone  formations  of 
great  thickness,  not  as  the  sepulchres  of  fossil  shell-fish,  but 
the  remains  in  mass  of  myriads  of  testaceous  or  coralline 
animals.  We  come  next  to  the  old  red  sandstone  forma- 
tions many  thousand  feet  in  depth,  and  which  are  an  aggre- 
gate of  older  rocks  fractured  and  decomposed  and  promis- 
cuously put  together  by  successive  depositions,  and  contain- 
ing such  organic  remains  as  there  lived  and  died,  but  which 
have  left  no  successors  among  the  latter  fossil  species. 

Deeper  and  earlier  than  all  these,  come  the  primary  for- 
mations. The  Silurian  system  here  has  place  for  a,  mile  and 
an  half  in  depth,  with  its  hundreds  of  animal  species  utterly 
extinguished  in  its  own  stratifying  process,  and  their  petri- 
fied remains  testifying  to  the  long  cycles  in  which  successive 
species  one  after  another  came,  and  ran  through  their  re- 
spective generations,  and  then  utterly  ran  out  of  being  for 
later  types  of  new  organizations.  Then  we  reach  the  Cam' 
hrian  system  of  nearly  equal  thickness  of  old  slate  rock, 
and  ir.  which  the  fossil  remains  of  animal  life  are  much  di- 


520  THE     REASON     IN     ITS     LAW. 

minished,  and  admonish  us  that  we  are  coming  to  an  age 
more  solitary  than  the  places  of  death  and  of  graves,  even 
to  periods  when  sentient  life  had  not  yet  a  beginning. 

The  Guinbrlan  formation  receives  us  still  lower  down, 
and  here  we  stand  with  all  the  generations  of  life  above  us, 
worlds  on  worlds  which  have  for  countless  ages  slept  in 
death,  and  read  around  us  only  the  records  of  material  na- 
ture ere  life  was  given  or  death  began  its  reign.  3Ilca  schist 
in  stratifications  of  many  thousand  feet,  are  given  ;  and  then 
gneiss  formations  bring  us  down  below  the  records  of  all 
stratifications  ;  and  the  crystallizations  of  the  solid  granite 
deeper  than  Ave  can  penetrate,  tell  us  only  of  the  fusing 
fires  beneath  ;  and  tlie  leaves  of  nature's  book  are  all  sealed 
up  from  mortal  eyes  beyond.  A  region  of  ten  miles  in 
depth  below  the  surface  has  thus  been  explored,  and  we  can 
here  deliberately  trace  the  history  of  nature's  operations, 
and  the  interpositions  occurring  in  its  own  successions  with 
unmistaken  certainty  and  precision ;  through  every  foot  of 
whicU  tliere  must  liave  been  the  passing  av/ay  of  geological 
ages,  to  have  sufficed  for  their  accumulations. 

Whatever  the  geological  epochs,  there  is  the  evidence 
that  antecedently  to  all  accumulation  in  regular  strata  by 
any  subsidence,  there  was  in  action  the  antagonistic  force  of 
attraction  and  repulsion,  ensphering  the  mass  about  a  com- 
mon center  ;  and  also  that  the  distinguishable  forces  of  heat, 
and  electrical  and  chemical  agencies  were  superinduced, 
without  at  all  subverting  the  original  space-filling  substance 
in  its  causality.  Matter  had  thus  chemical  combinations  as 
the  development  of  such  forces,  and  above  these  the  crys- 
talline force  is  superinduced,  and  thus  as  preparatory  to  or- 
ganic productions  material  existence  is  brought  into  form, 


FACTS    I2f    AN    ABSOLUTE    PERSOXALITY.    521 

and  its  conditioned  changes  run  on  in  the  development  of 
causes  and  effects,  and  nature  works  itself  out  in  the  action 
of  its  intrinsic   forces.     Attraction   and  repulsion,  bipolar 
forces,  chemical  affinities  and  crystalline  agencies  have  their 
inner  conditions,  and  their  inter-working  necessitates  their 
resulting  products.     But   neither  of  these   distinguishable 
forces  can  carry  their  action  beyond  their  own  inner  condi- 
tions.    Gravitation  can  not  act  as  caloric  or  electricity,  nor 
can  they  act  as  chemical  affinity  and  crystallization.     By  so 
much  as   the  higher  force   conditions  the  working  of  the 
lower  is  there  a  superinducing  of  the  higher  upon  the  lower, 
and  it  were  no  more  absurd  to  say  that  the  lower  originated 
in  an  utter  Aoid,  than  that  the  higher  originated  from  the 
lower.     By  so  much  as  it  is  higher  and  controllhig  it  is  a 
superinduction,  and  the  excess  to  have  come  from  the  lower 
must  have  originated  from  utter  emptiness.     'No  distinguish^ 
able  force  can   do  more  than   develop   its   own  rudimental 
being,  and  thus  nature  can  never  go  out  of  herself  as  she  is 
and  bring  into  herself  new  and  higher  forces.     All  superin- 
duction can  be  no  development  from  inherent  endowment, 
but  must  be  causation  imparted  by  an  ab  ea.*?ra  interposition. 
Crystallization    overacts  chemical  affinities  and  gravitating 
acjencies  without  extinscuishinc:  them,  and   could  not  thus 
have  found  its  genesis  from  them,  but  must  have  been  super- 
induced by  some  agency  beyond  them ;  and  so  in  turn  with 
all  distinguishable  forces,  which  shall  overact  crystallization, 
or  any  succession  of  such  forces  as   shall  one  overact  the 
other. 

We  may  not,  yet  at  least,  be  able  to  read  from  this  book 
of  geological  records  the  fict  that  nature  in  her  distinguish- 
able forces  was  successively  brought  into  being,  and  that 


522  THE    REASON     IN    ITS    LAW. 

the  superinduction  of  one   force   upon  another,  m  simply 
physical  organizations,  was  with  interventions  of  long  geo- 
logical periods.     We  may  confidently  affirm  that  the  lower 
could  not  beget  the  higher,  but  we  can  not  affirm  that  they 
were  successively  superinduced,  nor  deny  that  nature  began 
with  the  combination  of  the  gravitating,  chemical  and  crys- 
tallizing forces.     As  yet  we  have  nothing  but  probabilities 
from  analogy,  to  guide  us  in   our  conclusions  higher  up  in 
geological  periods  than  the  originations  of  vegetable  organi- 
zations.    Though  the  probabilities  are  all  the  other  way,  yet 
we  will  not  liere  decide  that  the  crystallization  of  the  granite 
mass,  and  the  action  of  heat  and  electricity,  and  magnetism, 
may  not  all  have  been  coeval  with  the  force  of  attraction 
and  repulsion  in  the  space-filling  substance.     But  whether 
contemporaneous  or  successive,  their  combination  is  no  iden- 
tification of  these  forces.     They  are  as  readily  distinguish- 
able from  each  other  as  if  we  had  them  in  isolated  action, 
and  we  can  distinctly  determine  the  parts  which  each  per- 
forms in  the  formation  of  the  j^hysical  structure  of  our  globe. 
In  this  combination  of  agency,  distinguishable  through  all 
its  superinduced  elements,  we  may  now  leave  the  considera- 
tion of  the  times  of  superinduction  to  some  further  study  of 
the  record,  and  merely  apprehend,  in  the  causality  induced 
by  the  overacting  and   controlhng  of  the  higher  with  the 
still  perpetual  operation  of  the  lower  forces,  that  the  subter- 
ranean fires,  and  the  crystalline  rocks,  and  the  half  fused 
gneiss  formations,  and  superimposed  depositions   of  mica- 
schist,  would  be  a  necessary  result  of  the  conditioned  devel- 
opment.    Kature  would  put  on  her  conditioned  forms,  and 
take  her  conditioned  positions,  and  pass   along  in  condi- 


FACTS    IN    AN    ABSOLUTE    PEKSONALITY.    523 

tioned  locomotion,  and  have  her  conditioned  changes,  from 
the  action  of  her  own  forces. 

But,  after  all  this,  we  have  a  sure  and  clear  record  of 
successive  interpositions.  We  can  very  legibly  read  what 
has  been  done  since  such  forces  had  brought  the  merely  ma- 
terial development  through  its  ^preliminary  stages,  and  it  is 
to  these  results,  as  fjir  more  important  now  for  our  purpose, 
that  we  give  a  more  special  attention.  Indefinite  geological 
cycles  passed  round  in  the  inward  action  and  onward  devel- 
opment of  physical  forces,  and  the  onward  series  of  cause 
and  effect  induced  their  combinations  and  cohesions,  and  the 
heat  gave  its  molten  masses,  and  the  crystalline  forces  ar- 
ranged the  firm  and  deep  granite  beds,  on  wliieli  the  entire 
geological  superstructure  through  all  its  varied  strata  re- 
poses ;  and  yet  periods  of  incalculable  duration  passed  by, 
Avhile  the  primitive  gneiss  rocks  were  attaining  their  consol- 
idation and  position,  and  while  still  later  the  mica-schist  was 
being  deposited  ;  but  at  length  a  point  in  the  ongoing  of 
nature's  conditioned  changes  is  reached,  where  we  have  her 
record  that  what  had  never  yet  appeared,  and  wliat  could 
not  be  begotten  from  all  that  nature  was — a  new  and  higher 
force  than  any  yet  in  action — began  its  being  and  its  mani- 
fest control,  over  the  other  forces  on  w^hich  it  had  been  su- 
perinduced. In  some  shallow  of  the  primitive  ocean,  where 
the  broken  and  triturated  particles  of  this  primeval  woi'ld 
had  been  accumulated  by  the  forces  then  in  action,  wholly  a 
new  force  is  at  Avork ;  and,  overruling  other  forces  for  its 
own  uses,  it  is  building  up  forms  and  combinations  of  phe- 
nomena unlike  all  that  nature  has  before  known.  A  field  of 
marine  alga^^  the  product  of  a  vital  force,  which  organizes, 
and  energizes  through  all  the  organization  of  root,  stock, 


524  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    LAW. 

branches  and  leaves,  is  in  its  first  existence.  The  germin- 
ating Hfe  begins  wliile  yet  through  nature  no  parent  stock 
or  seed  is  found ;  and  the  plant  expands  and  matures,  and 
while  the  primitive  organization  falls  and  is  utterly  decom- 
posed, this  vital  force  still  lives  on  in  the  ripened  germ,  and 
propagates  itself  in  its  undecayed  energy  in  the  newly 
shooting  plant.  Thus  vegetative  life  begins,  and  runs  on  its 
course  through  all  the  following  generations  of  that  species 
of  the  sea-weed. 

Whence,  now,  is  this  new  force  in  such  controlUng 
action  ?  It  has  just  come  into  nature,  and  over-rides  the 
other  material  forces,  and  is  itself  source  for  all  these  new 
phenomena,  but  whence  is  it  f  Gravitation,  chemical  and 
crystallizing  forces,  all  say  it  is  not  in  its,  and  can  not  have 
been  brought  out  from  us.  It  is  their  superior,  and  uses 
them  and  modifies  them  for  its  own  ends.  That  it  should 
be  deemed  some  genesis  of  nature  is  absurd,  for  nature  has 
till  now  known  no  causality  which  could  reach  so  high  and 
control  so  far,  and  by  so  much  as  it  exceeds  all  former  force 
in  nature,  it  must  thus  have  originated  from  an  utter  void ; 
and  which  is  just  the  same  impossible  supposition,  as  if  all 
nature  were  deemed  the  ofispring  of  an  utter  negation  of  all 
being.  It  has  been  superinduced  upon  nature,  and  has  thus 
become  an  addition  to  nature,  and  can  therefore  only  be  a 
creation  from  some  being  supernatural.  And  yet  so  per- 
fectly is  this  new  force  superinduced  upon  all  the  other 
forces  which  it  uses,  in  the  harmony  of  its  conditioned  and 
conditioning  operation,  that  it  is  quite  manifest  this  hand, 
Avhich  interposed  and  put  it  into  nature,  is  the  same  hand 
which  intelligently  holds  and  guides  all  nature.  We  have 
not  before  been  able  to  open  the  book  to  the  record  of 


PACTS    IN    AN    ABSOLUTE    PERSONALITY.    525 

nature's  beginning,  but  all  has  been  developed  nature, 
stretching  back  to  a  beginning  we  have  striven  to  find,  but 
could  not  reach.  Here  we  find  so  much  of  nature  as  vesre- 
table  life  begins  to  be,  and  so  in  harmony  with  all  else  of 
nature  that  it  uses  without  extinguishing  its  other  forces ; 
and  we  recognize  in  it  a  supernatural  personality,  who  is 
absolute  for  it,  and  for  all  of  nature.  And  here  also,  we 
may  see  that  the  evidence  for  this  recognition  of  an  absolute 
personality  accumulates  through  all  the  succeeding  epochs 
of  geological  formations.  The  primitive  forces  of  gravita- 
tion, cohesion  and  crystallization  act  on,  and  the  new  vital 
force  controls  them  and  perpetually  reproduces  itself  in  har- 
mony with  them  through  all  its  propagations;  but,  with 
the  vital  force  as  essential  being  for  one  marine  plant,  we 
can  have  in  nature  only  its  generations  and  in  its  own  kind. 
This  vegetative  force  is  conditioned  to  its  own  organizations 
and  can  build  up  only  its  own  phenomenal  structures,  and 
can  never  go  out  and  originate  a  new  species  of  organic  life. 
Each  new  species  of  vegetable  life  is  a  new  force  in  nature, 
more  emphatically  so  for  animal,  and  onward  from  the  lowest 
orders  of  testacea  or  corraline  existence  up  to  the  highest 
species  of  the  mammalia.  A  new  superinducing  of  beings, 
upon  that  which  nature  before  possessed,  is  effected  in  each 
case ;  and  as  it  did  not  come  out  of  previous  forces  of  nature 
in  their  conditioned  development,  so  in  each  case,  we  have 
a  new  recognition  of  that  same  personal  and  supernatural 
interference  which,  out  of  nature,  puts  hito  nature  what  he 
pleases. 

We  come  along  up  from  this  great  depth  to  which  we 
have  descended  and  reached  the  lower  sepulchres  in  which  the 
earliest  dead  lie  entombed,  and  from  thence  we  pass  along 


526  THE    REASON    IN    ITS     LAW. 

by  the  myriads  of  once  living  beings  preserved  in  their 
forms  beyond  the  skill  of  all  embalming,  while  at  every  step 
of  our  ascent  we  pass  above  entire  species  of  animals,  which 
had  run  on  through  many  generations  and  then  died  out 
utterly  in  the  extinction  of  the  race,  and  another  put  anew 
within  nature  as  its  successor  in  time  but  without  any  genea- 
logical connection.  One  form  of  sentient  nature  has  thus 
been  built  up  by  a  distinguishable  vital  force,  which  has 
propagated  itself  through  all  its  generations  and  occupied 
its  geological  era,  and  that  entire  organic  energy  has  ceased 
to  act  and  its  kind  become  extinct ;  and  other  species  have 
in  like  manner  been  successively  put  anew  within  nature, 
and  each  has  recorded  its  type  of  being  in  form  and  locality 
and  habitude  on  the  spot  where  its  generations  came  and 
went,  and  we  can  as  readily  determine  the  originations  and 
extinctions  of  the  species  as  of  the  individuals  themselves. 
'New  forms  of  life  begin  and  end,  sometimes  in  the  same 
geological  formations  and  sometimes  ^perpetuated  through 
successive  strata,  and  these  followed  by  others  to  become 
themselves  in  turn  extinct,  and  thus  nature  has  from  the 
beginning  of  animal  and  vegetable  life,  been  replenished  by 
repeated  and  successive  creations.  Among  the  last  j^roducts 
of  his  forming  hand  we  find  the  book  of  nature  like  the 
record  of  Moses,  to  teach  that  man  was  made  by  God  in  his 
own  likeness,  and  that  his  origin  is  a  very  recent  date  com- 
pared with  the  geological  cycles  since  other  and  lower  types 
of  sentient  beings  began.  What,  in  all  cases  of  these  super- 
induced forces  of  vegetable  nj^on  material,  and  of  animal 
upon  vegetable  being,  was  there  in  the  lower  which  should 
beget  the  higher  ?  What,  when  one  species  became  extinct, 
that  should  be  the  genesis  of  another  widely  different  species? 


FACTS    IX    AX    ABSOLUTE    PERSONALITY.    527 

What,  in  all  that  existed  through  nature,  could  rise  so  high 
as  to  give  birth  to  man,  when  there  was  yet  no  human  pro- 
genitor ?  As  well  might  all  nature  rise  into  being  from  an 
utter  void  of  all  being  at  once,  as  to  rise  by  progressive 
steps,  with  each  addition  an  origination  from  a  void  of  all 
being  beyond  what  nature  then  contained.  Over  and  over 
agani  we  here  recognize  in  these  legible  records  of  a  super- 
natural interposition,  wdiich  has  put  into  nature  that  which 
nature  yet  had  not,  the  existence  of  a  free  personality  wholly 
unconditioned  by  nature. 

(4.)  The  recognition  of  a  free  personality  in  humanity. 
We  have  before  found  that  this  is  a  universal  conviction, 
and  that  the  personality  comprehends  all  that  is  moral  in 
humanity  and  for  which  man  is  held  by  himself  to  be  respon- 
sible. This  we  are  convinced  did  not  come  of  nature,  inas- 
much as  it  is  competent  to  resist  nature,  and  to  distinguish 
its  own  originations  from  the  conditioned  successions  of 
nature,  and  thus  stand  forth  with  its  own  in  separate  unity. 
Still  this  free  finite  personaUty  is  recognized  as  in  combina- 
tion with  nature.  The  free  force  of  the  reason  as  spring  of 
action  in  the  right  of  its  own  dignity,  is  the  power  of  will ; 
and  yet,  while  this  may  ever  stand  in  resistance  to  all  the 
wants  of  its  sentient  nature,  it  may  never  wholly  separate 
itself  from  that  nor  prevent  the  appetitive  wants  from  coming 
frequently  in  collision  with  itself,  and  can  maintain  its  sover- 
eignty only  by  perpetual  vigilance  and  valor.  The  person- 
ality is  habitant  in  sentient  nature,  and  has  the  prerogative 
of  an  end  above  nature,  and  thereby  an  imperative  to  mahi- 
tain  its  dominion  over  nature,  but  with  all  this  prerogative 
above  nature,  it  can  not  break  up  its  combination  and  stand 
forth  wholly  pure  from  nature.     Humanity  is  ever  animal  as 


528  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    LAW. 

well  as  rational,  and  it  can  not  exclude  nature's  wants  from 
colliding  often  with  its  own  ethical  end,  but  only  prevent 
such  colliding  wants,  when  they  do  and  will  intrude,  from 
attaining  the  mastery.  Nature,  both  Avithout  and  within 
the  human  sensory,  keeps  on  in  her  own  unbroken  succes- 
sions of  cause  and  effect,  and  the  human  will  can  not  stoj) 
this,  but  only  exclude  her  dominion  within  its  own  sphere. 

Thus  is  it  manifest  that  the  human  personality  did  not 
come  of  nature,  since  it  may  wholly  exclude  all  domination 
of  nature's  conditions  over  it ;  and  as  manifest  is  it  that 
nature  did  not  come  of  it,  for  it  can  no  otherwise  free  itselt 
from  nature  than  by  excluding  not  by  annihilating  nature. 
It  is  a  distinguishable  energy  superinduced  upon  nature, 
and  as  controlling  nature  in  its  own  right  is  a  power  above 
force,  competent  to  hold  itself  free  from  all  external  force 
and  to  hold  in  subjection  ail  the  inner  forces  of  its  own  sen- 
tient nature. 

Personality  in  humanity  is  not,  therefore,  deemed  to  be 
a  higher  force  in  nature  superinduce"d  upon  existing  lower 
distinguishable  forces,  as  when  the  force  of  heat  overrules 
gravity  without  extinguishing;  but  this  personality  as 
power  of  will  is  itself  supernatural  even  in  its  superinduc- 
tion  upon  nature.  AYe  recognize  in  this,  not  a  new  physical 
force,  but  an  etJdcal  personality  as  absolute  above  nature, 
who  not  only  originated  nature  through  all  its  superinduced 
forces  in  succession  one  above  another,  that  the  highest 
might  phy8icallij  control  and  use  all  the  lower,  but  also 
crowned  the  whole  with  a  supernatural  in  his  own  image,  that 
this  finite  personality  might  ethically  control  and  use  all  of 
nature  for  its  own  worthiness'  sake,  while  itself  should  be 
subject  only  to  the  absolute  dignity  in  the  personality  of  its 


FACTS     IX     AX     ABSOLUTE    PEKSOXALITY.     529 

author.  In  this  author  of  human  personahty  is  universally 
recognized  the  absolute  ethical  personality  of  a  Deity,  who 
may  originate  not  merely  distinguishable  forces  superinduced 
upon  some  grand  central  antagonist  force,  but  who  must  be 
of  right  the  grand  center  of  the  whole  ethical  sphere,  and 
have  made  both  the  physical  and  the  ethical  systems  for  his 
own  worthiness'  sake. 

2.  The  fact  of  a  comprehending  operation  for  univer- 
sal nature  is  only  by  the  compass  of  this  Absolute  Person- 
ality.— Taking  the  universe  of  being,  we  have  the  material 
vegetable  and  animal  Avorlds  as  purely  physical  existence, 
and  wholly  bound  in  the  conditions  of  a  nature  of  things. 
Their  entire  onward  development  is  wholly  necessitated 
from  their  primitive  rudimental  being,  and  all  in  combination 
as  one  universe  had  one  fixed  series  without  an  alternative. 
We  have  in  this  universe  of  being,  also,  the  complex  exist- 
ence of  the  sentient  and  the  rational  in  humanity,  and  thus 
the  human  race  so  involved  in  the  conditions  of  a  nature  of 
things,  that  in  their  constitutional  being  they  belong  to  the 
same  physical  system,  and  must  be  comprehended  within 
the  compass  of  the  same  author  and  designer.  We  need 
thus  here  to  see  the  fiict  of  a  comprehending  operation  of 
reason  for  the  entire  universe  of  being,  material,  vegetable, 
animal  and  human.  This  human  has  moreover  its  personality 
in  liberty,  and  is  thus  ethical  being ;  and  in  the  end  of  its 
own  intrinsic  dignity  and  worth,  the  human  personality  must 
stand  in  moral  alliance  with  all  ethical  beings  in  their  per- 
sonality ;  and  we  shall  thus  have  an  ethical  universal  system, 
including  all  free  personality.  We  need,  therefore,  to  see  the 
fact  of  a  comprehending  reason  for  an  entire  ethical  system, 
in  its  separate  and  comprehensive  imperatives.     We  have, 

53 


530  THE     REASON     IN     ITS     LAW. 

then,  to  attain  the  facts  for  a  comprehension  of  both  a  phy- 
sical and  an  ethical  universe.  And  Jiere,  in  each  case,  the 
hypothesis  is,  that  we  never  effect  such  comprehension  except 
by  the  compass  of  this  absolute  personality  which  we  hav^e 
found  to  be  universally  recognized,  and  never  even  specula- 
tively discarded  but  by  a  delusive  paralogism  which  is  now 
readily  exposed.     We  will  here  take  them  up  in  their  order. 

(l.)  The  comprehension  of  the  Physical  JJniverse. — 
The  comprehensive  agency  performs  its  operations  only  by 
the  compass  of  an  author  and  finisher.  If  a  true  and  pro- 
per beginning  be  not  reached,  then  nc  act  of  a  <>oraprehend- 
ing  agency  can  commence.  All  is  left  to  the  conditioned 
series  of  cause  and  effect,  evermore  reproducing  itself  in 
every  repetition.  And  when  a  proper  origination  is  attained, 
a  designed  consummation  must  also  be  apprehended,  or  the 
work  of  comprehension  can  not  be  completed.  It  is  begin- 
ning and  progress  witli  no  aim,  having  no  end  to  be  reached, 
and  no  goal  of  perfection  to  be  attained ;  "  a  mighty  maze 
and  all  without  a  *plan."  Such  encompassing  author  and 
finisher  is  found  only  in  this  recognition  of  an  absolute  per- 
son, as  the  God  and  guide  of  nature  and  tlie  sovereign  of 
the  moral  universe. 

This  is  manifest  abundantly,  from  the  facts  given  in  any 
direction  where  this  conviction  of  the  human  mind,  that 
there  is  such  an  absolute  personal  Deity,  has  not  been  dis- 
carded or  in  any  way  lost.  If  the  rational  in  man  has 
among  any  savage  people,  been  as  yet  so  little  developed 
that  the  recognition  of  an  absolute  personality  has  not  yet 
been  reached,  then  has  there  to  such  a  rude  and  barbarous 
tribe  been  no  comprehension  of  any  thing  in  nature ;  of 
nature  as  a  universe;  or  of  any  ethical  system.     If  through 


FACTS     IX    AN    ABSOLUTE    PERSON  A  LIlY.    531 

a  delusive  speculation,  such  original  conviction  has  been  dis- 
carded, there  has  at  once  been  lost  all  rational  comprehen- 
sion  of  the  universe.     Whence  it  came  ?  and   whither  it 
tends?  have  been  questions  not  only  unanswerable  to  such, 
but  in  the  discarding  of  all  encompassing  in  a  beginning  and 
consummation,    such    questions    are     without    significancy. 
We  might  as  well  ask  whence  come  and  whither  tend  the 
passing  periods  of  time,  for  nature's  connections  are  thus 
made  as  aimless  and  endless  as  the  conditioned  successions 
of  indeterminate  durations.     No   Atheistical  system  ever 
attempts  to  comprehend  the  universe.     Xature  comes,   it 
knows   not    whence ;    and    moves   onward,    it   knows   not 
whither.     If  it  talk  of  laws  and  principles  in  nature,  its 
talk  is  all  absurdity  ;  for  its  laws  have  no  law-giver  and  its 
principles  no  2)rlnci2num.      If  it  seek  to  generalize  these 
laws  and  principles  and  make  its  God  of  the  aggregate,  and 
thus  atheism  change  to  Panthelsfn  ;  it  is  only  to  change  the 
absurdity  of  its  language,  for  such  an  aggregate  is  still 
evermore  made  up  of  parts,  and  the  parts  can  neither  find 
nor  make  the  one  that  shall   comprehend   the  whole.     lN"o 
Polytheistic  scheme  can  give  an  encompassing  author  ;  for 
each  god  is  tutelar  deity  for  but  his  own  region,  and  all  are 
in  perpetual  contention,  until  some  recognized  God  of  all 
gods  harmonizes  the  whole,  by  encompassing  the  whole  in 
his  orio-inatinii;  and  consummatinsc  control.     A  Manlcliean 
theory,  of  two  original  sources  of  all  being,  is  but  just  so 
far  comprehensive  as  its  assumed  personality  encompasses ; 
and  light  and  darkness,  the  good  and  the  bad  daemon,  divide 
the  universe  between  them,  and  all  is  eternal  conflict,  except 
one  be  expelled  in  the  supremacy  of  the  other.     Ko  intellec- 
tual comprehension  of  universal  nature  has  in  fact  ever  been 


532  THE    EEASON    IN    ITS    LAW. 

made,  where  the  comprehending  reason  did  not  encompass 
all  fi'om  beginning  to  final  end  in  one  absolute  personal 
Jehovah ;  and  wherever  such  recognitiod  of  absolute  j^er- 
sonality  has  been  attained,  there,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  has 
universal  nature  ever  been  comprehended  in  him  as  sole 
author  and  finisher  thereof  The  law  in  the  facts  of  all 
comprehension  of  nature  is  the  recognition  of  an  absolute 
and  free  being,  and  the  process  of  all  comprehension  in  the 
fact  is  in  precise  correlation  to  all  such  comprehension  in  the 
a  pi'iori  idea. 

(2.)  The  comprehension  of  the  Ethical  System. — Man 
is  conscious  of  perpetual  im^^eratives,  and  that  there  are 
perpetual  moral  obligations  that  must  rest  upon  the  race. 
It  is  not  difiicult  to  take  the  convictions  of  obUgation,  grow- 
ing directly  out  of  the  inward  witness  of  what  is  due  to 
the  dignity  of  man's  rational  and  spiritual  being,  and  find  a 
perfect  ethical  system  every  way  complete  and  comprehen- 
sive in  its  own  autonomy.  The  existence  of  the  ethical 
persons  will  itself  originate  the  imperatives  as  universal 
moral  law,  and  the  control  of  the  law  universally  will  be 
the  consummation  of  the  moral  government.  This  will 
include  only  such  imperatives  as  may  be  made  universally 
binding,  and  in  which  we  may  readily  come  to  see  that 
which  should  5e,  without  regard  at  all  to  the  enquiry,  now, 
whether  that  which  should  be  actually  is.  It  is  for  the 
facts  as  imperative  that  we  here  seek,  and  not  for  the  facts 
as  they  may  be  existing  in  real  life. 

Humanity  in  its  ethical  personality,  is  spring  for  control- 
ling all  the  appetites  of  its  sentient  nature.  They  should 
in  all  cases  be  held  so  subject  and  the  good  will  in  each  per- 
son should  ever  reign  sovereign  over  desire.    As  separate 


FACTS    IN    AN    ABSOLUTE    PERSONALITY.    533 

persons  the  highest  imperative  would  be,  the  preservation 
of  the  integrity  of  moral  character,  which  is  found  in  mak- 
ing and  keeping  the  ends  of  the  sentient  subservient  to  the 
end  of  the  rational.  The  maxim  for  each  person  must  be — 
do  that  which  is  due  to  the  dignity  of  the  person,  in  the 
complete  subordination  to  it  of  the  wants  of  the  animal. 
This  is  the  duty  of  each  person,  and  hence  it  is  due  as  a 
right  in  each  person,  that  no  other  person  be  allowed  to 
interfere,  and  endanger  its  continuance.  As  social  beings, 
therefore,  each  having  imperatives  in  the  right  of  his  own 
personality,  and  thereby  the  right  to  an  unhindered  com. 
pliance  with  such  imperatives,  the  maxim  for  each  must  be 
— do  nothing  that  shall  infringe  upon  the  freedom  of  another 
in  his  compliance  with  the  imperatives  of  his  own  j)erson- 
ality.  Such  individual  maxims  thus  made  into  law  universal 
would  be  thus  expressed — respect  thy  own  rights  and 
regard  the  liberty  of  thy  neighbor  in  his  rights.  All  rights 
originate  in  the  intrinsic  dignity  of  personality,  and  all 
imperatives  originate  in  rights  ;  and  thus  all  rights  and  all 
duties  at  once  exist  in  the  existence  of  human  society,  and 
the  sum  of  all  law  for  such  society  is  found  in  the  above 
maxim  made  into  law  universal.  From  this,  by  analysis, 
may  be  derived  every  private  and  social  duty,  but  which  it 
is  not  necessary  should  be  here  formally  drawn  out.  The 
entire  community  in  the  aggregate  would  attain  the  consum- 
mation of  a  human  society,  by  the  control  of  such  universal 
law.  The  aggregate  would  become  an  organic  whole  in 
systematic  unity  thereby.  Each  person,  as  component  ele- 
ment in  such  a  society,  would  be  both  end  in  himself,  and 
auxiliary  to  the  end  of  all,  sustaining  his  own  worthiness 
and  contributing  to  the  universal  dignity.     The  social  body 


534  THEKEASOXIXITSLA-W. 

would  be  altogether  without  schism,  and  the  functions  of  a 
healthy  life  going  on  in  every  part.  In  the  social  system  of 
humanity  this  ougJit  so  to  be ;  and  then  the  whole  stands 
out  in  its  completeness  under  the  directory  of  its  own  law 
and  blessing  itself  in  every  part  through  the  perpetual 
results  of  its  own  action. 

Such  a  consummation  is  no  mere  conception  arbitrarily 
created.  That  humanity  is  in  social  being,  is  ground  suffi- 
cient to  induce  the  universal  conviction,  that  such  a  consum- 
mation ought  to  he.  The  imperatives  originating  in  its  own 
being  give  the  claim  for  such  an  ethical  system  in  its  origin 
and  consummation.  All  should  thus  act  from  the  maxim 
which  is  imperative  as  law  universal ;  and  all  so  acting,  the 
aggregate  worthiness  and  blessedness  is  attained,  and  virtue 
and  moral  self-complacency  reign  in  every  part.  It  is  right- 
eousness rewardinoj  itself  according^  to  its  merit  in  its  own 
results. 

But  that  which  ought  to  be,  will  not  be,  when  any  one 
l^erson  has  violated  a  right  and  introduced  sin  into  the  sys- 
tem. Tliis  one  violation  reaches  through  and  breaks  in  upon 
the  rights  and  the  complacency  of  the  whole.  All  have  a 
righteous  claim  upon  every  other  that  they  each  fulfill  the 
law  universal,  and  that  no  one  shall  be  as  "  a  broken  tooth 
or  a  foot  out  of  joint."  And  when  such  offending  member 
introduces  his  disturbing  and  colliding  moral  action,  it  is 
the  equitable  claim  of  the  whole,  that  the  delinquent  and 
all  his  deranging  action  be  at  once  excluded.  But  it  ought 
not  to  be  that  his  exclusion  be  merely  topical  displacement, 
as  the  removal  from  a  material  machine  of  some  part  broken 
or  become  rotten.  Remorse  and  shame  is  the  sinner's  due, 
and  the  moral  disapprobation  of  all  the  holy,  perpetually 


FACTS    IN    AN    ABSOLUTE    PERSONALITY.     535 

made  manifest  toward  him,  is  the  righteous  demerit  of  the 
guilty.  The  Ught,  in  which  he  ought  to  regard  liiraself  as 
lost  in  dignity,  is  precisely  the  light  in  which  all  others  ought 
to  regard  him ;  and  his  retribution  of  shame,  self-reproach, 
and  public  abhorrence  is  as  imperative,  as  the  approbation 
and  complacency  for  the  A'irtuous. 

And  still  further,  the  sin  and  colliding  agency  of  one 
does  by  no  means  release  any  other  from  the  imperative  of 
the  law  universal,  but  each  is  bound  to  the  same  integrity 
of  character  personally  as  before  the  unworthiness  of  one 
had  been  introduced.  And  here  then  begins  an  evil  which 
the  action  of  the  system  can  not  in  itself  remedy.  The  im- 
peratives remain,  but  the  bliss  of  all  is  marred.  Even  such 
as  are  firmly  loyal  to  the  right  rule  feel  the  colliding  influ- 
ences of  the  sinner,  and  their  freedom  and  rights  and  bless- 
edness are  impaired.  The  system  can  not  repair  itself  in  its 
own  action.  An  intruding  evil  has  come  in  which  it  can  not 
eject.  The  system  must  still  work  on  under  its  imperatives, 
but  it  will  now  perpetually  and.  forever  work  wrong. 

And  so,  jjrecisely,  we  find  the  facts  to  be.  They  are  not 
in  human  society  as  they  should  be.  What  ought  to  be  is 
not,  and  the  ethical  system  is  perpetually  contravening  its 
own  imperatives,  and  perpetuating  moral  inconsistencies 
which  it  can  not  itself  redress.  The  retribution  of  the 
wicked,  and  the  exclusion  of  their  colliding  influence  is  not 
as  from  its  own  imperative  it  ought  to  be.  That  which  is 
differs  far  from  that  Avhich  should  be,  and  the  jjcrpetual  on- 
going is  a  perpetuation  of  wrong-doing.  In  such  a  state  of 
facts  all  comprehension  of  an  ethical  system  were  impossible. 
That  has  come  in  which  should  not  have  originated,  and  that 
consummation  which  should  be  is  unattainable.     The  fact  as 


536  THE     REASON     IX     ITS     LAW. 

it  is  has  no  satisfactory  origin  or  end,  as  ethical  system.  It 
stands  itself,  in  its  own  working,  abhorrent  to  the  moral 
reason  and  conscience  it  embodies ;  and  is  an  ethical  blot, 
eternal  and  irremediable  in  its  own  helplessness  of  all  self- 
cleansing. 

And  here,  the  question  is,  how  comprehend  the  etJiical 
system  in  humanity  as  Ave  find  it,  marred,  perverted  and  in- 
corrigible from  its  own  action  ?  We  can  comprehend  an 
ethical  system  as  it  should  be  very  readily  ;  since  the  exist- 
ence of  the  human  society  would  itself  originate  the  rights 
and  the  imperatives,  and  the  fulfillment  of  the  law  universal 
would  be  its  consummation ;  but  it  is  a  very  different  fact  of 
comprehension  Avhen  the  ethical  system  is  already  perverted 
and  in  itself  helpless  and  hopeless  of  all  restoration  in  its 
OAvn  movement.  How  such  perverted  ethical  system  origi- 
nated ?  how  be  consummated  ?  is  now  the  problem.  In 
what  way  is  the  operation  for  comprehending  an  ethical 
system  efiected,  as  the  system  is  in  its  depravity  ?  And  to 
this,  the  answer  is  universal,  both  as  negative  and  positive. 
No  Atheistic  or  Pantheistic  system  ever  did  or  ever  can 
comprehend  an  ethical  government  over  human  beings  in 
their  depravity,  by  accounting  either  for  the  origin  of  sin, 
or  for  the  recovery  of  the  race  from  it.  All  Theistic  sys- 
tems ever  have  made  such  a  comprehension,  by  encompass- 
ing all  with  the  hand  of  an  absolute  moral  governor  from 
the  inception  to  the  consummation;  and  in  some  way  re- 
ferred to  Him,  in  the  perfection  of  His  wisdom,  the  sove- 
reign disposal  of  all  that  the  moral  government  involved. 
Under  the  administration  of  a  Divine  Sovereign,  has  the 
human  race  been  created,  and  the  ethical  relations  and  re- 
sponsibilities   established,   and   the  sin  and    disorder   have 


FACTS     IN     AN     ABSOLUTE     PERSONALITY.      537 

come  in  and  will  be  so  controlled  r.s  at  last  to  work  out  a 
consummation  worthy  of  his  dignity,  and  corresponding  to 
every  claim  that  his  subjects  may  righteously  lay  before  his 
throne.  Whatever  may  now  be  hid,  in  the  darkness  of  his 
inscrutable  dealings,  is  only  mystery  to  the  finite  subject ; 
"  God  is  his  own  interpreter,  and  He  will  make  it  plain." 
Thus,  and  thus  only,  has  there  ever  been  effected  any  com- 
prehension of  an  ethical  system  in  depraved  humanity. 

It  might  be  very  easy  to  show  here,  that  the  provisions 
of  the  Gospel  scheme  of  Redemption  are  precisely  adapted 
to  the  interests  of  reason  in  effecting  such  an  ethical  com- 
Ijrehension,  and  that  the  divine  interpositions  have  been 
wholly  regulated  by  the  behests  of  God's  own  worthiness 
and  dignity.  It  behoved  him  so  to  inteifere  and  no  other- 
wise in  the  j^ermission,  the  overwhelming  and  restraining, 
the  expiation,  j^ardoning,  and  punishing  of  sin.  On  the 
christian  ground  of  a  moral  government,  its  comprehension 
is  in  complete  conformity  with  every  f  ict  of  man's  ethical 
responsibility  and  God's  righteous  sovereignty.  Man  in  his 
freedom  should  have  been  no  otherwise  restrained  ;  God  in 
his  holiness  should  have  no  otherwise  interposed.  But  our 
whole  work  in  determinuig  the  fact  and  the  law  of  a  com- 
prehending reason,  for  an  ethical  system  as  it  is  in  fallen  hu- 
manity, is  completed  in  this,  that  we  now  see  that  it  has 
never  been  attempted  except  upon  Theistic  grounds ;  and 
that  in  the  recognition  of  an  absolute  personality  as  moral 
governor,  whether  without  or  with  the  light  of  a  divine 
revelation,  the  moral  system  with  the  sin  and  evil  in  it  has 
ever  been  held,  as  in  some  way  having  a  rational  origination 
and  ultimate  consummation. 

Putting  thus  together  all  the  facts  of  a  comprehending 

23* 


538  THE    REASON    IN    ITS    LAW, 

agency,  whether  on  the  Hmited  field  of  humanity,  or  of  a 
divine  operation  in  nature,  or  of  a  divine  government  over 
an  ethical  system  of  fallen  beings,  and  finding  in  all  that  the 
only  law  is  that  of  a  free  personality,  and  that  without  such 
compass  of  a  personality  in  liberty  no  comprehending  as 
fact  is  any  where  given,  we  have  an  induction  sufficiently 
broad  for  deducing  the  general  law  of  all  comprehension ; 
and  this  law  in  the  facts  is  the  jjrecise  correlate  of  the  a 
priori  idea  of  all  comprehension,  and  thus  gives  science  to 
the  operation  of  reason.  We  have  as  demonstrative  a 
science,  for  an  intelligent  comjyrehension  o? uxiwqy^?!  human- 
ity and  universal  nature,  as  for  the  connection  of  phenom- 
ena into  a  nature  of  things,  and  for  the  conjimction  of  the 
diverse  in  quahty  into  definite  phenomena.  We  have  thus 
the  science  of  our  entire  intellectual  being,  including  the 
functions  of  the  Sense,  the  Understanding,  and  the  Reason. 
This  is  all  that  we  have  proposed  to  ourselves,  and  in  this 
we  have  a  complete  j^hilosophy  of  the  human  mind — a  na- 
tional Psychology. 

We  understa7id  the  universe  in  the  space-filling  forces 
that  constitute  it,  and  w^hich  in  their  substantial  being  and 
causal  action  determine  all  sense  phenomena.  We  compre- 
hend the  universe  in  the  activity  of  a  personal  sj^irit  who 
creates  and  governs  it.  He  is  the  author  of  nature,  and  of 
the  common  space  and  time  of  nature,  and  is  thus  himself 
absolved  from  all  the  conditions  of  nature  and  of  nature's 
space  and  time  ;  and  in  this  he  is  the  Absolute.  The  Abso- 
lute can  not  be  understood^  for  all  the  conditions  which 
give  law  to  logical  thought  are  wholly  impertinent,  and  all 
the  conditions  which  give  unity  to  the  judgment  are  insig- 
nificant when  applied  to  Him.     He  can  not  be  comprehended 


FACTS     IN    AN     ABSOLUTE     PERSONALITY.    539 

by  any  finite  intelligence,  for  Pie  is  the  absolute  compass 
comprehending  all  things.  He  can  be  ratlonalhj  appre- 
hended as  a  Spirit  in  His  self-activity,  self-law,  and  liberty, 
by  all  rational  beings,  and  is  thoroughly  known  only  to  him- 
self; "  the  things  of  God  knoweth  no  man,  but  the  spirit  of 
God."  To  the  understanding  which  would  ask  liow  God  is, 
we  say,  "  Canst  thou  by  searching  find  out  God  ?  canst  thou 
find  the  Almighty  to  perfection  ?  It  is  high  as  heaven,  Avhat 
canst  thou  do?  deeper  than  hell,  what  canst  thou  know?" 
To  the  Reason  which  has  its  insight  into  nature,  "  his  eter- 
nal power  and  Godhead  are  clearly  seen,"  and  to  the  reason 
only  does  revelation  disclose  the  being  of  God.  We  thus 
know  that  he  is,  and  what  he  is,  but  can  determine  nothing 
whence  and  how  he  is. 


22* 


APPENDIX  TO  THE  REASON. 


AN  ONTOLOGICAL  DEMONSTRATION  OF  THE  VALID  BEING  OP 
THE  SUPERNATURAL. 

A  COMPREHENDING  Reasoii  ill  its  process  of  operation 
has  now  been  fully  obtained  both  as  subjective  idea  and 
objective  fact,  and  in  this  is  a  complete  science  of  the  reason 
as  faculty  for  comprehension  and  in  which  we  conclude  our 
examination  of  the  whole  field  of  Rational  Psychology. 
As  in  our  completed  science  of  the  sense  which  is  faculty 
for  conjunction,  and  also  of  the  understanding  which  is 
faculty  for  connection,  we  found  the  data  for  an  ontological 
demonstration  of  the  valid  being  of  the  objects  given  in  each 
faculty,  so  here  it  may  be  expected,  that  the  science  of  the 
reason  will  fui*nish  the  data  for  an  ontological  demonstration 
of  the  objects  cognized  by  it  in  its  functions  of  a  compre- 
hending agency.  These  are  the  finite  personality  in  human- 
ity ;  the  absolute  person  as  author  and  governor  of  nature ; 
and  the  consummation  of  his  final  end  of  a  universal  system 
in  some  future  state  of  moral  existence.  Our  whole  work 
will  thus  be  concluded  in  this  outline  of  a  demonstration  for 
the  valid  being  of  the  supernatural,  in  the  several  respects 
of  THE  Soul,  God  and  Im:\[ortality.  From  what  has  pre- 
ceded, a  bare  statement  is  sufficient. 

1.  The  valid  being  of  the  Soul. — ^The  conception  of  the 


VALID     BEING     OF     THE     SUPEKNATURAL.      541 

soul  as  an  existence  which  is  supernatural  inckides  more 
than  living  and  sentient  being,  and  a  higher  capacity  of 
action  than  from  any  promptings  of  appetite  or  general 
judgments  of  greatest  gratification  deduced  from  experi- 
ence. All  this  is  conditioned  and  held  in  necessity  by  some- 
what that  has  gone  before,  and  is  thus  bound  in  the  linked 
connections  of  nature,  and  through  its  most  subtle  analysis 
or  in  its  highest  generalization  can  be  but  nature  still,  mak- 
ing no  possible  approximation  towards  the  supernatural. 
There  must  be  an  existence  which  is  ethical,  and  which  in 
the  right  of  its  own  personality  may  act  independently,  and 
in  liberty,  and  feel  a  conscious  responsibility  for  such  action. 
Is  there  a  process  of  demonstration  for  the  valid  being  of 
such  Soul  ? 

Two  sources  of  argumentation  may  be  taken. 

(l.)  The  fact  of  a  coniprehending  agency. — X either  a 
conjoining  nor  a  connecting  agency  could  attain  the  concep- 
tion of  an  operation  of  comprehension,  much  less  that 
either  could  actually  comprehend.  An  acting  liberty,  as 
rational  personality,  can  alone  comprehend  any  thing  as 
liaving  a  proper  origin  and  consummation.  The  fact  there- 
fore, that  man  comprehends  nature  in  the  compass  of  an 
absolute  personality  is  demonstration  that  he  is  Soul. 

(2.)  The  facts  as  given  in  an  ethical  experience. — Were 
there  the  conception  of  an  ethical  personality  as  soul  some- 
how attained,  still  no  mere  ideal  of  the  soul  could  give  the 
actual  facts  of  its  rational  agency.  The  following,  among 
other  facts,  are  in  actual  being — imperatives  controlling  all 
appetites ;  affections  above  all  sentient  emotions  ;  reciprocal 
complacency  between  moral  personalities ;  and  more  espe- 
cially a  capacity  to  resist  all  the  conditions  of  nature  and 


542  APPENDIX     TO     THE     REASON. 

Stand  firm  on  the  ground  of  duty — and  the  fact  that  man 
has  such  experience  is  proof  that  he  is  Soul. 

2.  The  valid  existence  of  God. — There  are  three  hues 
of  demonstration. 

(l.)  The  fact  that  all  atheistic  specidatio7is  are  from  the 
antinomy  of  the  discursive  facidty  as  understanding^  and 
which  have  been  shown  to  he  delusive. — This  dehision 
removed,  the  teleological  argument  for  an  author  and  gover- 
nor of  nature,  derived  from  the  traces  of  design  in  nature, 
remains  irrefragable. 

(2.)  The  fact  of  new  forces  originating  in  nature. — 
Such  facts  have  been  before  given,  and  could  not  come  of 
nature.  Xo  mere  conception  of  a  God  could  give  such 
facts.     The  facts  are,  and  they  demonstrate  that  a  God  is. 

(3.)  The  fact  that  an  ethiccd  sy stein  is  in  being. — This 
has  beforehand  been  made  manifest.  Such  ethical  system 
can  neither  originate  from  nor  be  controlled  by  any  thing 
in  nature.  That  it  is,  is  demonstration  that  an  absolute 
ethical  person  as  moral  Lord  and  Judge  exists. 

3.  The  validity  of  the  SoiWs  Imniortality . — The  exist- 
ence of  humanity  is  itself  origin  for  the  rights  and  impera- 
tives in  an  ethical  human  system.  Obedience  universally  to 
these  imjDcratives  is  a  consummation  of  the  system  in  its 
perfection.  But  as  fact,  the  law  imiversal  is  not  kept. 
The  moral  system  is  thus  in  its  depravity,  and  if  left  to  its 
own  action  its  consummation  in  its  moral  perfection  is  quite 
hopeless,  ^yhat  ought  to  be  certainly  will  not  bo,  from  the 
system's  own  action.  Is  there  then  any  way  of  demonstrat- 
ing the  consummation  of  a  moral  system,  and  in  this,  demon- 
strating that  the  soul  shall  be  immortal  ? 

The  process  is  as  follows.     The  truly  virtuous  man  has  a 


VALID     BEING     OF     THE     SUPERS  AT  UBAL.      543 


righteous  expectation  of  happiness  ;  and  his  hope  rests  upon 
an  imperative  tliat  his  blessedness  be  equal  to  his   merit. 
The  vicious  ouglit  to  anticipate  misery  equal  to  his  demerit. 
The  virtuous  and  vicious  ought   so   to  be  placed,  that  the 
wickedness  of  the  one  shall  not  interfere  with   the  Hbert}', 
endanger  the  virtue,  nor   diminish  the  bliss,  of  the   other. 
Tlie  virtuous  have  not,  however,  what  they  might  hope  foi'; 
the  vicious  have  not  what  they  should  fear  ;  and  the  action 
cf  tlie  bad  perpetually  annoys  the  good.     If  what  ought  to 
be  is  to  be,  an  ethical  sovereign  must  make  it  so  to  be. 
And  unless  morality  is  a  figment,  and  all  our  ethical  experi- 
ence a  chimera,  such  a  consummation   must  some  way  be 
effected  ;  hence,  on  this  ground  alone  a  strong  faith  in  the 
l&eing  of  God,  and  of  a  future   state,  might  be  cultivated, 
put  at  the  most  it  would  be  laith,  and  not  science.     There 
rv'ould  be  facts  in  our  conscious  imperatives  showing  what 
mghtto  be,  but  Vvc  could  not  thus  reach  the  facts  for  demon- 
strating, that  what  ought  to  be  in  fact  vnll  he.     But  if  now 
we  add  what  has  already  been   attauied,  in  the  ontological 
demonstration  of  the  actual  being  of  a  God,  then  we  have 
sufficient  for  a  conclusive  proof     God  is  ;  a  future  state  of 
rewards  and  punishments  ouglit  to  h^  /  the  existence  of  God 
is  a  guarantee  that  what  ought  to  be  surely  will  be.     God  is 
ethical  goodness,  and  it  is  impossible  that  He  siiould  deny 
Himself.     It  is  thus* infallible  thattlie  soul  shall  live  on  in  its 
obedience  and  bliss,  or  in  its  disobedience  and  misery,  for- 
ever; and  also,  that  the  time  must  come,  when  the  separa- 
tion of  the  righteous  from  the  wicked  shall  effect  the  designed 
and  demanded  consummation  of  the  moral  system. 


NOV 


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